mini-photo-update....

too blurry to think/write...

Caleb grows and changes and amazes me every day!

ready for the doctor

9 weeks old - 10 lbs 15 1/2 oz - 23 1/4 inches

in Gramma's chair

flirting with Rhonda

smiles for mumma

bundled up for the first beach walk of the year

not pretty, but beautiful all the same

Motherhood is not glamorous, I've come to find out. Some days Caleb is napless and I scurry around madly trying to accomplish just one small thing while attempting to keep baby entertained and happy. These are days when I can't remember if I brushed by teeth or took my prescriptions. These days will find me bleary-eyed, unshowered, still in pajamas at 4 p.m., hair in a ponytail and most likely wearing at least one item of clothing adorned with baby spit-up. On these days the under-eye circles emerge victorious, and you could quite possibly sail a small craft down the rivulets of deep wrinkles that have formed on my face.

But on these days occur tiny moments like this: baby snuggled and snuffling at my neck, smelling just as a sweet baby should smell, sighing and content, existing only in the now.

Aaahhhh. Beautiful.

hoppy Easter

Caleb's 1st holiday

Easter at the lake with Gramma & Grampa

Looking so cute in his bunny suit....

there are days

There are days these days when I am so tired there is nothing to compare it to. Motherhood brings a whole new meaning to the word tired. Nobody could have told me before, and I'm not even sure how to explain it now. But you moms out there know, and maybe some of you dads, too.

Visitors are lovely, but tiring. My mother was here for almost 2 weeks to help with baby Caleb and despite her efforts when she left I was exhausted. Then, the week following, I was a different kind of exhausted from coping at home alone all day while John worked. Then came the visit from Vermont friends and their two children, 5 and and 7. Late nights, early mornings, busy days: exhaustion. Yesterday my mother-and-sister-in-law came for a couple hours, and I was exhausted even before they arrived as I cleaned the house (one-handed, as best I could, taking 17 times as long as usual due to holding a fussy baby in the other arm). But I had a luxurious shower during their visit while they played with Caleb and was even able to blow dry my hair! I felt human for a short while, and baby (and I) took a lovely 2+ hour nap in the afternoon. Heaven.

Caleb even cooperated as I prepared dinner, he sitting happily in his carseat on the kitchen counter as I chopped, diced and sauteed. When Daddy got home (early at 5:15) so I could go for my mammogram, I was thinking, "Whew, a break! I 'll run some errands after my appointment and get out of the house for a bit!" But Daddy's work had other ideas for both his time and mine. So I rushed to the doctor, rushed back home (surreptitiously making a Starbuck's stop on the way), finished making dinner, quickly ate, then was back on baby duty. FOR THE WHOLE NIGHT. As John had a last-minute deadline and was up all night working himself.

So, today is a day already. It's 8:27 a.m. and there are bottles to be washed, formula to be mixed, laundry to be done, trash to be taken out, and I'm in dire need of a nap. Caleb?? Please????

making poopie

something's happening...

oooh, it's coming!

THERE it is!

I never knew you could obsess so much about bowel movements, and this coming from a veteran of Crohn's disease.... 

Some thoughts/conversations that fill my day:

Has he pooped yet?

Is he making poopie now? 

When did he last poop?

What was it like?

Mushy?

Sticky?

Formed?

Green?

Seedy?

Wait - is that a poopy face, or is he just gassy?

Oooh, that's a smeller!

And then, when it comes:

Wow...

Holy s*?t!

That's a biggie!

Just like spackle (with some color additives)...

Pheewwww!

OMG

Which then means a new diaper for Caleb, and a fresh onesie, and possibly some pants and socks depending on how wriggly he was during the change/wipe (or how far-reaching the poopie). Then I rinse the diaper in the toilet, throw it in the bathroom sink to soak (and later be admired by Caleb's daddy), and PRAY that baby is exhausted enough from doing his big job that he'll nap for an hour or two while I recover.

Then we await the next round :)

how

has more than an entire week gone by since my last post? Where are the days, hours, minutes? How is it that tiny baby Caleb has grown fuller and fatter and longer in the space of a week? It is incredible how he changes EVERY day, just ever-so-slightly. His face is more jowly and less round. His little fingers are reaching and waving and grasping. He has begun to grab the bottle when he eats, and to fling his pacifier across the room with his wee little hands. He pulls my shirt and hair when I hold him. His eyes are ever watchful. What does he see right now? Am I in focus or just a blurry blob that emanates warmth and brings milk? I swear he looks right at me.

I am waiting for the real smiles and gurgles of delight and already feeling the sadness of a period of Caleb's life gone by. One month in this world as of this weekend - amazing. Time never flew so fast, and yet what is it I do all day? I hold him, sing to him, feed him, change his diaper, rock him, dress him, mix his bottles, take his picture, give him his soothie, swaddle him, LOVE him. And that fills up the day....

where's the baby?!?

I went to write in my blog this morning thinking I had some great ideas, and they all escaped me. Who says pregnancy messes with your brain function? I was not and am not pregnant but think that fact has little to do with the way my synapses are misfiring. I have had the same pajamas on for the past 36 hours. I have been mixing bottles, washing bottles, sterilizing bottles and refilling bottles on a mad endless cycle. There are little piles all over the house of tasks begun and abandoned as I hail to the calls of baby Caleb. At 2 1/2 weeks old, he has no fixed timetable just yet, so he - and I - are all over the place. Yesterday I had dumped a load of laundry in one side of his crib so I could fold it and hang out with him while he dozed. I went into our bedroom to put clothes in the dresser and checked on the baby in his bassinet but he wasn't there. Where's the baby?! WHERE'S THE BABY?!??! A frantic loop around our tiny upstairs found him safely in his crib, sleeping, well, like a baby. I swooped him up, knocking his tiny noggin on one of the framed pictures above his bed (now I am rethinking the whole baby-room picture placement) which promptly woke him. There went "my time" to get things done. I have so far tried 3 child slings in an effort to keep baby near and cosy while also alleviating the "where's the baby?!" fears as I putter around the house. None of them work, at least not the way I'd envisioned. Either he's uncomfortable or I'm uncomfortable - bound, claustrophobic, squished. And while I am getting quite accomplished at doing things with one hand while the baby's in the other, I can't help but think there's a small safety issue there....