Reflections

The baby was sleeping Sunday and I found myself doing laundry, cleaning the leftovers out of the fridge, faxing insurance paperwork and claims, preparing thank you cards, and starting his Baby's First Year calendar.

All of which must mean I'm feeling more human. Oh, and that M took the early morning feeding Sunday morning, which means I got more sleep. (Then the poor man got up and went to his meetings at church while I rested with the baby at home. He's awesome!)

I can't believe it's taken 3 weeks to get to this point. I mean, officially, I'm exhausted by about 5 every evening. Like, really really crazy tired. But it seems to be the only time of day that we can manage to get out of the house for some reason.

Saturday night we went on a sort of date night. We went out to eat and then walked around the mall and got a ice cream cone at DQ. Then we made out like we were teenagers again. . . doctor's orders about de minimis use of the downstairs area, you know.

I'm still in awe that I had a baby. That we have a baby. That he was incubating inside me and now he's out.

It's crazy that I'm still healing. My ab muscles are sore in weird areas. My tailbone still hurts and I swear I bruised it during labor. My groin muscles are still tight and sore. I'm still "leaking". Crazy!

My baby is already changing. His cord stump finally fell off right around Thanksgiving. He's been out of the house almost daily, but not really around people (other than family). We're waiting until he's at least a month old. He's getting longer. He has baby acne. His eye infection is finally clearing up. He's very kissable, especially his cheeks and neck. He's a grunter, mostly when he's waking up or really hungry. He's a good baby and we love him to pieces.

I send M at least 1 picture/text message every day because M misses the baby so badly while he's at work. He's offered to be be a stay at home dad, work part time and finish up school quicker. We're looking into that option.

I'm going to cut my hair off on Thursday. I'm so excited! It hasn't been this long in 10 years, but it's up so much that it's not worth it to me any more, especially when I'm finding strands of hair in the laundry and on my baby. Not cool.

I'm hoping to start walking/preparing to transition to Couch to 5k this week. My weight is down to what was my pre-pregnancy heaviest - the weight at which I began losing weight in 2007 simply by cutting back on soda, drinking more water, and making healthier eating choices. I'm cooking more at home again, so the eating better should be easier. The comforting thing is that I've been this weight before and got down, so I know I can do it again.

I did go out to grab some food a couple of nights ago. It's the first time I've been away from the baby since I got pregnant and watched every minute of that 15 minutes. It was nice and strange at the same time. It does not make me excited for having to go back to work.

I've been to Babies R Us twice in two days - picking up stuff like more clothes, pacifiers, quilted play yard sheets. . . and L and I spent over an hour looking at bottles today. I never in a million years would have guessed that I would one day spend that much time obsessing over which bottle "system" would be the best (and not leak all over the place), but there it is. That's my badge of motherhood for the day.

Let's see. . . what else?

I think that's enough for now.

~Nichole