Random Thoughts About Our Third Week As Parents

Mommy-hood is really fantastic - most of the time...until she starts screaming/crying and there's nothing we can do to calm her down. But sometimes it's funny b/c she's perfectly calm, nothing changes at all, and she'll start wailing, or she is wailing and then suddenly she is basically asleep. It's crazy. Sometimes bouncing works, or rocking, or vibrating, or holding her by her armpits and just letting her dangle, or raising her up over your head over and over again - it's so strange what gets her to stop screaming sometimes.

But when she's awake and calm, or sleeping on my (or his) chest (she likes that b/c she can hear the heartbeat), it's the best thing in the world.

Of course, she doesn't do a whole lot right now so it's not too exciting... yet. Eric's favorite thing is the bath - he just thinks it's really funny b/c she's so slippery. She's generally pretty good about the bath - not her favorite thing but not horrible.

We finally figured out that she gets tired within about an hour of eating so she gets really fussy and we try to put her to sleep. That, and keeping her off the bottle, is keeping her happier these last few days. Which stinks b/c she'll have to be on a bottle when I go back to work but we've got time to work that out.

Eric goes back to work this week so I'm on my own for the first time today- should be interesting. I'm sure we'll manage on our own - just gotta keep her fed, dry, and not-tired. :)

People told me stories about bad postpartum depression, about poor breastfeeding, about crazy hormones, etc - I haven't experienced anything that bad. I had a pretty uneventful pregnancy and so far a pretty uneventful 1st few weeks. If we swaddle her she sleeps for 4-5 hours at night, she latches on to eat beautifully (though that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt), and I haven't felt anything other than pure joy (well, I did tell her I was going to kill her once - a few days ago- when it seemed like all she did was scream and suck and I was getting so frustrated and sore).

Things come naturally. I don't do well with other folks kids - want nothing to do with them - but when it's your own - the mothering instinct that you never knew you had kicks in and things just work. My cousin told me that once they are here it's like they were never not part of your life - and that is so true. You just know what to do or you try a thousand things and figure it out.

Well, it's way past feeding time so I must go wake Ms. Kayla up. By the time we get her to sleep it's about 30 minutes before her next feeding time so I usually let her sleep - I think sleep outranks eating at this point. :) You know - laying around all day is exhausting. :)