Life With Baby

One thing everyone will tell you when you're pregnant with your first baby is to "enjoy" your time...and you wonder what that means. After all, you see people with children just about everywhere so clearly life is doable with a couple of rugrats in tow. I especially scoffed at these notions, envisioning myself as the mom who could effortlessly leave the house with 10 minutes notice and not skip a beat. And sometimes I can...

But more often than not, its just not that possible. The best laid plans can go to pot in moments if G3 decides that he doesn't want to take a nap (which is about 5 of 7 days of the week) or he wants to spit his breakfast across the room instead of eating it, or there's some type of disaster that involves the need for a change of clothing.

Yesterday was no exception. The plan was a doctor appointment at 9am, then a quick jaunt over to Wilkes-Barre to buy a carseat (and a few other unneccessary things at Babies R Us), and finally a stop at the mall to pick up a pair of jeans for me (since our mall is absolutely devoid of any stores a normal human being would shop at.)

Leaving the house by 9am occurred smoothly based on the fact that I had packed the diaper bag, the car, and my purse the night before. I had my coupons for Babies R Us, the directions, G3's vaccine record, and my insurance card tucked into my purse (though somehow I managed to lose the vaccine record.) G3 decided that breakfast was no good, we skipped most of it, I took a quick shower and dressed both of us, and we were out the door.

After the doctor, we headed over to Wilkes-Barre. As I suspected, my baby fell asleep in the car, so this allowed me some time to navigate the carseat aisle and ask questions. I picked up a plastic swing, some formula, some bibs, and checked out just as he was waking up. He gave the salesgirl his obligatory flirty grin and we dropped $300 (!!!!!) and headed to the car.

Sounds easy right? All I had left to do was go to American Eagle. In theory, this should have taken like 10 minutes. Drive across the highway to the mall, run in, grab some jeans, run out. But first I needed to put G3 in the car, collapse the stroller, and shove everything in the back of the jeep. Then I had to dig the stroller back out, get G3 out again, strapped in the stroller. Next I had to find a bathroom--G3 needed changed. Into the bathroom, out of the stroller, onto the changing table--where I have to hold him while digging through my bag for supplies. Diaper changed successfully. Back into the stroller, straps again. Pack diaper bag back up. Decide I had better use the bathroom as well. This involves waiting for the wheelchair stall to be available, manuevering my stroller through a bevy of women washing their hands, and cram it into the stall with me.

Okay, onto shopping. Except, G3's hungry. I give him his bottle and recline the stroller seat--this is a new thing, until very recently he was incapable of feeding himself (and still is if he's upright...doesn't get the tipping-head-and-bottle/cup thing yet.) With G3 happily sucking away, I decided it best to just try on the jeans. Of course, American Eagle doesn't have the size, length, and color I want all in one pair of jeans. Sighing, I head off to Aeropostale to try on some more. Though I like spending money and acquiring new things, I hate trying on clothes. Partially due to the fact that even with baby weight gone I still have a chunk of skin left that likes to hang out over my waistband. Really, I should name it. But the second reason is that the days of running out of a dressing room barefoot and in not-yet-bought pants to grab different sizes are over. Its a huge fiasco of dragging the stroller back out, manuevering it through the dressing room hallway, and looking around for an absent salesperson. No thanks.

Anyhow. I got in line to buy my jeans exhausted, overheated, hungry, and ready to go home. Running to an appointment and two stores before noon had taken its toll on me...and probably my little monster, I realized, as I mentally noted he'd been very quiet and well-behaved. I bent down in front of his stroller to talk to him while we waited.

As usual, G3 never ceases to amaze me. He looked at me with the biggest, best grin in the world and threw himself at me in a hug--the first time he's ever done that without being prompted by me saying "Can I have a HUG, G3, a HUG?" and putting my arms out. He did it all on his own. I dont' quite know how to explain how such a simple thing just totally, 100%, completely made my day. Not that it needed "making", it was going just fine. G3's hug was my icing on the proverbial cake.

Later we shared a pretzel and he again suprised me by feeding himself little bits from his stroller tray like he'd been doing it for years...even though "finger foods" are a difficult concept for him to grasp--if he does manage to pick up something small he inevitably gives it to the dog.

We came home, had lunch, played, spit yogurt all over the room, tested out the new swing, went to meet Gabe at the notary, played some more, had dinner (or rather, spit and threw dinner all over the dining room). In the midst of all this I balanced the checkbook and filed about a months worth of paperwork. Then Gabe came home, we went for a walk, came back, tried dinner again, took a bath, got dressed in jammies, tried dinner again. The Gabe's had some quiet time while I cleaned up and finally, eventually, exhaustingly, put G3 to bed. Just one hour later I was sleeping on the couch. It was barely 9:30pm.

This was a pretty typical day...and people wonder why moms are so exhausted all the time!! But what stands out is not the insane amount of money I spent on a carseat, not the long walk, not the 3 complete meals I pretty much threw away because he didn't want to eat. What stands out is baby Gabe giving me a hug, being so elated that I bent down to talk to him. Things like that make everything else just...not important, so to speak.

Thus is life with baby!