Month #3 Covered in Pee

So April was the month that everything started to come together. Everything my husband and I had planned was turned upside down and we had to adjust. For instance, we lived in a one bedroom apartment. A roomy, one bedroom apartment, but once Charlie came and we actually had another living human being in the house, we realized everything we had setup was stupid and needed to be fixed. In our living room, we constructed his play yard because it had a built in changing table. In our bedroom, we put the bassinet. Well when the play yard was just getting filled with everything (diapers, stuffed animals, clothes, toys, etc.) and Charlie was almost too long for the built in changing table already, we needed to move stuff. We bought a long dresser to house all the clothes and blankets and put a changing pad on top.

I wish I wouldn't get frowned upon for saying this, but that changing pad was a life saver when he was that small because we did the ultimate parent no-no, we left him up there while we did stuff. Now, we weren't constructing a lava pit on the ground below the dresser, or even so much as running to the restroom. But, when he would lay there and stare at himself in the mirror, I would easily leave him there while I put his clothes away. Or even while I snapped a hundred million pictures of him. Case in point:

One more awesome thing, Charlie learned to roll over. There was definitely some trial and error, but it made for great footage.

But finally:

(Yes, I am a master video editor. Don't mean to brag)

So yeah, he pretty much nailed it. Best day ever because my child actually did something that required him to use his brain, AND HE COMPLETED IT. My son is a genius!

Month #2- Covered in Poo

So returning back to work was both stressful and exciting. While on maternity I often forgot what day it was. Not just the date, the entire day of the week. So I was kind of looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Charlie had other plans though.

The night before my first day back at work, Charlie woke up only once, but then woke up a whole hour before I was supposed to get up for work. It is crazy how much time you sacrifice in the beginning that it all seems almost irrelevant. Nowadays, if anything wakes me up an hour before I need to get up, I will solve the issue and plan on snoozing the alarm a good three times before I get up. But, as the mother of a newborn it was almost routine. I should have kept a running tally of hours lost after the baby was born. I can't even tell you how many times I would be doing things with Charlie and he would doze off. Then I would try to get some chores done while he is sleeping, and he would wake up what felt like 40 minutes later and I would look at the clock and it was 1 a.m. Where the hell does the time go?

So the morning of my first day back I got ready and went to kiss all my boys goodbye. I got to Charlie last and just started crying. I heard about women doing this and thought, "Come on grow a backbone." And I was one of those ladies now. I just couldn't believe I would be away from him ALL DAY.

I grabbed my huge bag filled with my breast pump in it and headed out the door. Work was great. My boss tried to take it easy on me so I wouldn't get overwhelmed. It was a great gesture, but it just caused me to shop online more than I would any other day. This is a horrible problem with first time mothers. You want everything cute that exists in the baby clothes market. I found myself trying to justify purchasing Christmas clothes that went on clearance, just "because he didn't have them already". Of course he doesn't have them already, IT'S MARCH.

I experienced my first uncomfortable moments where I needed to get to the pump room, immediately. Talking to other nursing mothers at work, they just kept saying, "Oh it gets better." Little hard to believe as you are now filling up your breast pads even having that conversation. At the end of the day, I grabbed my cooler and headed home on the bus. Little did I know that all the milk I had pumped for the day had tipped upside down and was slowly leaking out of the bag. I stood up to get off the bus and it was a puddle that slid all down my winter coat and dripped onto the floor. Luckily, it's public transit and this is a common occurrence, so I just shrugged it off and walked home.

Coming home to the baby the first day after being away is awesome. It was like the world's greatest gift. He has no idea who I am, but likes to be warm and held close to a body. AND I WAS THAT PERSON! Now that Charlie is much older, I long for those days when a tiny baby just falls asleep on your chest. Like you are the most comfortable thing in the world. True, Charlie will voluntarily give me kisses now, but if I try hold him to my chest to fall asleep, it's like wrestling a squirmy bag of flour.

Charlie also started to smile more around two months. It wasn't a full blown, "happiest child in the world" smile, but more of a, "they don't even know I just popped up my back" smile.

He also started to sleep better, which equates out to about 6 hours straight. Waking up once a night while going to work, was totally bearable. Pre-baby Kristen would burn a forest down if someone continually woke her up every night at least once. But, babies mellow you out. Like whatever man.