1. We should have bought stock in Pampers or Babies R’ Us. Forget all the other investments- these two companies have gotten large contributions from us lately.We went through 80 diapers in one week. Buy the stock now.
2. We can not get out of the house as quickly as we once did. Hadley in the carseat? Check. Diaper bag with diapers, change of clothes, changing pad, wipes, pacifier, bottle and blanket? Check. Check. Check.
3. All trips outside of the house are scheduled around her every 3 hour eating schedule. This impacts #1 above. If she is due to eat in 30 minutes we are not leaving the house for an hour and ideally will be back in 2 hours because of the next meal. However, we have become experts at feeding her on the go. She has enjoyed her bottle at the National Gallery of Art, Mount Vernon, multiple restaurants and Target.
4. The Soothie Pacifier is the single greatest invention. Should have bought stock in that too.
5. Sleep is much different now. And, the whole ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ line that people who have never had an infant or who have children in college and don’t remember them as infants tell you is total bull. When she is sleeping during the day- it is my time to do things like eat or shower or check email or make coffee. Hadley has been really easy on us but when she is alert at 4am that is when we want to sleep the most.
6. I now know all the verses to the Mockingbird song. Who knew it was ‘mama is going to buy you….’???
7. Babies can make serious noises. Wow. Hadley can out belch most people. The security guard at Mount Vernon thought the hiccups were coming from Kerry as they echoed through the museum. I am not evening going to discuss the gas sounds. Plus. there are he grunts, groans, coos, shrills and shrieks. For someone who only weighs 8 pounds- she has some serious noise talent.
8. Baby clothing sizes are just as strange and all over the place as women’s clothing sizes. Hadley was in preemie clothing until last week and now has graduated to newborn. She weighs 8 pounds and is over 20 inches long and somehow fits into clothing that was intended for someone much smaller. The newborn stuff is a little big and the cutoff this size is supposed to be 8 pounds. Hmmm…..
9. The weird/inappropriate question that I got during my pregnancy just continue now that I have a baby. Complete strangers want to know her birth weight, birthday, how much she eats a day, how she eats, when she is going to have a sibling (really not the right question to ask someone who has a 7 day old infant and has not gotten a lot of sleep) and how she ‘was born’? Well, when I say ‘c-section’ people get a weird look on their face and then the inappropriate questions about ‘why I chose to do THAT’ or statements like, ‘why did you allow your doctor to do that,’ or ‘c-sections are becoming way to0 prevalent now,’ comes out of their mouth. Really complete stranger or random acquaintance people? If you must know- she was not coming out the other way. We tried the drugs. We tried the walking. We tried the waiting and the drugs. If it had been 100 years ago we would have probably both died. And no, the doctor did not do the c-section so she could get home for dinner. End of story. Stop with the crazy.
10. We love being parents. It has only been four weeks but we can’t really remember not having her around. And, we are totally biased but she is the cutest, most fun, best kid ever.
all three of us 