Showing posts with label infant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infant. Show all posts

May 22, 2009

What Do You Think Of Your Baby Brother?

"Mama, he's very happy in his mind, and he smiles a lot so we can know it."

"We can't get married now because I'm a girl and he's a baby boy. When we're both grownups, then we can get married like you and Daddy."

"Watch out, Daddy. He might pee on you!"

"Did you hear that, Mama? He's trying to say my name!"

"Mom! He spit up in my bed. Eeeew! He spit up again and it's on me! Here! Take him, take him. Get him out of here!"




March 28, 2009

Yours, Mine & Ours

Just 16 days into it and Big Sister's already hip to the power of pronouns.

"Who else would like a turn to meet my new baby brother?"
"Look, Mama! My baby is holding my finger!"
"My baby brother likes to watch me dance."

"Mama, make your baby stop crying! I think your baby poopied in his diaper."




March 25, 2009

The Things I Had Forgotten

Oh, the things I had forgotten between Baby #1 and Baby #2.

Dress in layers. That way you can simply peel clothes off layer by layer as the baby spits up on them throughout the course of the day. Jacket, sweater, shirt, camisole... if you get that far before you're ready to head home, you'll just have to turn your clothes inside out and start again.

No matter how much the baby sleeps at night, you will sleep less. Because after the baby slips into a nice, cozy "milk drunk", you lie awake listening for the baby's breathing, or waiting for one of those delightful middle-of-the night toxic diapers, or wondering if the "Vaccines Cause Autism" people are right, or trying to calculate how much a college education will cost 18 years from now, or trying to remember where you stashed the last Cadbury chocolate almond bar.

The 20-minute rule. That is, add 20 minutes to everything you need to do. For example, start to leave the house 20 minutes before you actually need to, because on your way out the door you'll remember that you took the car seat out to clean it, and you never put it back in. You'll need every one of those 20 minutes to wrestle the thing back in and hook all of the hooks to the right hook holders.

Frog Bodies. I forgot how difficult it is to dress or diaper a human frog with legs that never straighten out.

How much there is to say about nothing.
Diapers. Bottles. Stain removal. (Someone, please, get me a Wall Street Journal!)

The wonder. I hadn't forgotten it, but the memory had softened. There's nothing like the smell of fresh baby to reframe the day.