Wow, we all survived the first month!

Sitting here with my little monster on my lap (in one of the greatest inventions known to mankind, a sling!), I'm not entirely sure what to write. It's been a month. It certianly does not feel like it has been a month since he was born. Between mood swings, sleep deprivation, and just desperately trying to adjust to his being among us, I think this feels like the world's longest week. Then again, he wasn't quite this big the day we came home and I don't think he was quite this active either.

I don't think I really have too many 'cute' baby stories at the moment. Some things that just left me wonder-struck are really quite small in the grand scheme. Things like how he looks when he smiles, the tiny size of his hands and feet, and how excited he gets when he first hears his father's voice when hubby gets home from work... they're not very dramatic but they just strike me as marvels.

And then there are the things that I never fully believed in until this child was born. No, not some mystic revelations or that Elvis is living with his space alien friends in the neighborhood of the star Vega. No, it's things a bit more mundane. I did not really believe in explosive bowel movements, for example, until this child had one that I could hear at the other end of the apartment with out the baby monitor on! I never really did believe that pacifiers could be repulsed from the baby's mouth like a pair of ni-cad magnets aligned at opposite poles, but that binky shot clear across the room as soon as my fingers left it.

I didn't comprehend that an infant could manage to go thru half of their wardrobe (which takes up half of the closet) in one day due to soiling themselves. I wasn't fully prepared for the way this child can manage to some how violate the laws of physics with his ability to have a bowel movement that transported itself (in part) from within his diaper to on my clothes, with out any appreciable amount on his pants. I'm still baffled by the way he managed to spit up and have it all down the back of his clothes. I mean, the boy was sitting up in his swing, facing forward, with the thing not even moving. There was no way for his spit up to get onto the back of his clothes unless by some strange effect I don't understand.

Do the bodily excretions of an infant exhibit the quantum particle's effects on a macroscopic scale? It really is the only explination that I can think of at the moment.

And to think, this is but after the first month of this child being home. What will come next? Probably bankruptcy with the cost of diapers and diaper wipes.

So, how do I do this, again?

I am finally getting to a point where there's something of a schedule for this kid. This is great, except for the fact that I now need to figure out how to fit into this schedule the details of running a household and my on-line business. It's a bit tricky and rather nerve wracking. I can see why my Father said that a schedule is your biggest ally in raising a child.

That said, I think the biggest challenge I'm having right now is not the schedule. I think I'm having difficulty with trying to figure out just what I'm going to be doing next with my business. I want to improve my marketing scheme by setting up a website. Not just doing the little website that is thru Keen for my listing, but a real website for my business. Making the financial investment to purchase a domain name and hosting is making me nervous. I realize that this is not something difficult. I know it's not rocket science, but I can't help but worry that if I can't bring in enough money this will be another point where money is just flowing out of this home.

We really can't afford a financial problem like that. So, I'm feeling anxious at the moment. I am also a little nervous because I finally have started to make real progress with establishing my 'name'. That initial boost of confidence that came from the happy replies and the impressed responses to my tarot reading skills has turned into a little bit of a concern that I may not be able to live up to the expectations that my clients will have of me. I recognize that this is my worrying over something for the sake of worrying, but it's been bothering me today.

All of that said and done, I hope that I can get this running my own business thing figured out. I hope that I can remember to take care of the taxes and other tithing to the government in proper order. Most of all, I hope that this can prove to bring in enough money in a fashion that allows me to take care of this little baby and keep house with out loosing my mind. Yep, a schedule is definitely going to be my best friend in this particular little front.

pfft...

Sometimes, I wish I could just snap my fingers and the whole place would be clean. As it stands, I don't think that we'll see a spotless apartment again for many months. :P

UGH!

Ok, I'm done whining, now off to go start making some progress on this mess.

I may just survive this motherhood thing...

Right now, the kid's asleep in the sling on my lap. He looks real cute when he's sleeping. I almost don't have the heart to wake him up for his next feeding. We've all been doing ok around here. Sleep is actually starting to happen at night, even if it is broken by the 3 am feeding. I've been feeling happier and less like I'm completely screwing everything up. Maybe it means that my hormones are finally settling out.

I'm a bit fustrated because the clothes that I have don't fit me right. Those clothes that I had about two years ago from when I was over weight, well, that's about what size I am now. My goal is to get the weight from the pregnancy down by next summer. I've been walking and doing a little light exercise recently. It's wonderful to be healed up enough to actually do some of this stuff again. I never thought that I'd enjoy doing sit-ups, but I did. It was a weird experience. :) Hubby's starting to show that he's making real progress on losing weight himself too.

He started working on improving his own health about two months ago. I didn't really notice because I was half insane from being pregnant. As it stands, I think he's probably lost almost an inch off his waistline, but I'm not entirely sure. I am proud of him for all of that effort, though. It's not easy to be doing things like putting yourself on a diet or making yourself go exercise when you've got about twenty different things pulling you in different directions. So, now, we're striving for healthy meals at home and getting some exercise in when we can.

We've gone for several walks recently, and it was really nice. Who knows, maybe next summer or later in the fall this year, we can go and actually take a few hikes on the trails in some parks we love. It's been a while since we've gone walking at the county park and I hope that we can do so soon. I can't remember if it's still open, as it is after labor day. I may need to check on that before I suggest it to him. :)

The baby is growing like a weed. I was going nuts trying to do the whole "put the baby on a schedule" thing and it wasn't working. So, we decided to give it a try with feeding the baby on demand. It's actually working alot better and the kid is eating/drinking more. The next challenge to conquer is getting him to transition from bottle feeding to breast feeding. It'll be a whole lot easier then continuing to do what I am doing now. I've been pumping and then feeding it to him in a bottle. We had a little success earlier this week getting him to suckle.

I figure if we keep at it, the boy will learn how. It's already pretty clear that he prefers the taste of breast milk to that of formula. I found that interesting. Perhaps it tastes as bad as it smells when he burps, I don't know. If I can just get this little boy to calm down when it's time to feed, I know that I'll see a lot more successes on the breast feeding front.

I'll try to post a pic of me and the baby soon. I almost have figured out how to [b]use[/b] the camera. Now to learn how to get the pictures!

first week down, how many more to go?

Well, the three of us survived our first week home. I'm torn on a few different fronts on how to handle a few different things. I want to breastfeed but the baby has difficulty latching on. He gets so excited/anxious when he tries that he just doesn't manage to get any real feeding done most of the times we try. I've been giving him a bottle with breast milk in it, but I really wish I could be feeding him at the breast. I'm not sure what the best option is at the moment.

Hubby has been working hard on trying to juggle supporting me in my postpartum insanity and dealing with the insanity of work. I love him dearly and I greatly appreciate the effort he has been putting in, but I don't know if I'm demanding too much of him. He deserves time to relax and such. It makes me mad that he has to use his vacation time to take time to be with the baby and I. I know that there's alot of fires to be put out at work and that in alot of ways my dear husband has been the reason why things run smoothly over there. I recognize that his boss depends on him alot for help, and with good reason, because my husband is damn good at what he does and as loyal as an old dog.

At the same time, I'm upset because he hasn't been given time to just relax before the baby was born. We didn't get to go spend some time together as a couple before the child came along, like a little vacation somewhere for a weekend. It was something we had tried to plan over the summer but it never worked out. Now, he's going from the stress of work (where they're trying very hard to improve their standing in the market, again) to the stress of being home with a wife whose half crazy because of hormones and a week old baby. It makes me worry that he's going to resent me for the times where I need him to cuddle me and tell me it'll be ok. And right now, it seems to be happening as often as the baby is looking to be cuddled.

The other source of consternation and confusion is how to manage to get things finished up with rearrangement around here. I don't know where I'm going to put various things and that makes me nervous. I don't know how to arrange things in a manner that will be most efficent. That makes me nervous. I feel like this place isn't big enough for us and that makes me highly uncomfortable. I'm sure that this feeling will pass after we get everything sorted out, but right now I feel like a cat in a rocking chair factory.

And the worst thing right now is the fact that I'm not 'glowing with happiness' when it seems like damn near everybody is insisting that I should be. Apparently, it's normal for new mothers to spend some time doing things like dressing the baby up in every single new outfit for him/her they own. It's apparently normal for them to tickle and such the kid even if they're sleeping. I just can't bring myself to do it and I'm not at the point of being damn near idiotic with happiness. I'm actually feeling rather numb most of the time. The happy face is a front to make the people who tell me I should be happy shut up. There are moments where I'm happy but most of the time it's a cross between nervous and numb.

A concerned friend of mine is suggesting that I may have a touch of postpartum depression. I don't know, maybe I do. I just know that there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to even catch up on stuff, never mind finish anything. It makes me want to cry in frustration. And I have this nagging fear that I'm not a good mother because I don't know what I'm supposed to do at every time with a newborn baby. I am afraid that I'm not a good mother because I'm not gushing with love for my baby boy already. I'm afraid that I'm not a good mother because I would rather sleep then get up in the middle of the night to feed him. ... The list of reasons why I am afraid I'm not a good mother is easily a country mile long.

And that makes me sad too.

I thought you were supposed to be happy when you have a baby. Not scared, sad, and numb. I can understand exhausted or exasperated, but the other three, I'm not so sure about that.