Happy Smallidays!

I have a tiny human sleeping in a sling on my chest. She’s all curled up right now, not stretchted out to her 2 feet of length, which she often likes to do these days. She’s a snuggly little cuddle-worm; yes, I’m now blogging in babytalk. Can’t help myself.

So if you’re going to be snowed in, do it with a newborn! They keep you busy, require work, and provide many many rewards. If you don’t own one, rent one (i.e. babysit!). The many noises and facial expressions each one comes with will make you forget the sound of your smartphone, pager, crackberry, and/or inner voices.

Christmas was spent with our new little family, and yes, this was taken with a self-timer and a tripod (and required several takes - and we're still missing half of Mike's face!). We awoke to few snow flurries, and I made breakfast: mimosas, povatetsa (amazing Polish pastry bread sent from Mike’s parents every year), and my specialty, candied bacon. We opened presents and Skyped with both families. Mike chipped in for lunch, initiating his new tradition of making something new every year, which in this case was roasted tomato goat cheese open-faced sandwiches. We took a relaxing walk round the frozen pond, and then topped the evening off with some honey-baked ham, roasted tomato soup, arugala salad, and fresh-baked chocolate chip roasted walnut cookies, first playing Heavy Rain (Mike’s xbox 360 Christmas gift to himself), and watching Christmas vacation.

So we missed our families, but we really had the best Christmas ever! Babies make good presents....

Hope everyone had a falalalala good time this year!

My baby daddy came home!

That was, essentially, my facebook status update today. How ridiculous, right? But yes, it's true, M came home today and yin and yang are back in balance. What's even more wonderful, is that I managed to take a 90 minute nap! The exhaustion struck hard when M came through the front door, and so I napped, and napped, and napped some more! I then had what I call a nap hangover (which is why I don't normally nap), but I took a walk around our freezing cold pond and woke up again. Then, and this is the best part, I went to a yoga class... by myself! Best class I ever took, too; I just relished every muscle burn and difficult pose. It was such a treat.

So of course having a baby changes everything... that's complete common knowledge. But what I didn't expect was that having a baby actually changes you, as in your essence: your thoughts, your feelings, your goals, your interests... and to take the easy road, I'll just take on that last bit. It changes how you want to spend your time, who with, the places you go, even the food you eat. If there was any indecision before, it's gone, replaced with a strong sense of intention and an enhanced ability to be efficient. Intention- if I don't go to that party, I won't feel the least bit guilty. Efficiency - I can now cook, eat, clean, and practically tame lions one-handed. Baby-unfriendly places don't even sound good to me; if it's intellectually stimulating, fun in an adult way, or later than 9pm and won't accomodate my stroller, provide me with a changing table, or an easy way to nurse or bottle-feed my baby, forget about it. I don't pine for my pre-baby life either (like I thought I might); I just think, what a nice, fun, and happy-go-lucky time that was! Not a care in the world...

Anyone (perhaps childless but not necesssarily) who reads this and worries that I've warped into one of those parents everyone always fears about, hold your concerns. What I'm really getting at is that I am content; I always knew that I'd love my baby more than anything and love being a mom, but what I didn't know was that I wouldn't pine for the past. Maybe some day I will, but right now I'm satisfied with what I managed to experience before G, and now I'm even more excited to see what little G will experience, whether it be laughing for the first time, sitting up, or gaining head control!

One down, four to go...

So I'm sitting this on night two (out of five) of single parenting. Let me set the scene for you... it's 8:40pm, I'm in baby base camp (what I now call our two living room couches, as they are cluttered with baby gear (hats,blankets, baby books, pacies, and burp cloths), and half-finished projects (my half-finished Christmas cards, a half eaten salad, a half a glass of wine, "half" of my camera - I'm attempting to finally charge it and download pics, a half pint of blueberries from day time snack, half-wrapped Christmas presents, and a half-written paper. Maybe I should have entitled this blog "halvies." All I know it is a good day if I finished half of what I set out to do: half of dinner, half of the laundry, even half a shower!

But we're doing well, we're rockin out. Girlfriend is upstairs slowly falling asleep, eyes half mast, and I'm trying not to stalk her (too much) on the video monitor. Wow what an invention! It was expensive, and it's a little much, but oh the peace of mind it offers! I like how it has a sound bar; so if you don't have the sound on, it gives you a visual warning of your baby crying - literally turns red like "DANGER DANGER!" So yes, my eight-week old is on video surveillance.

So we're trucking away at it, growing older, that is, while Daddy is at a conference in NYC. We miss him, he misses us, but we're getting along. I am tired though! Like a bone tired that I suspect only new moms and maybe first-year residents experience... like even if I got 8 hours of straight sleep (would be amazing!) it would take a number of those before I could fully recover from the sleep deprivation I now feel. It's like burned into my forehead, eyes, neck and shoulders.

So I guess I should sign off and go to bed!