I never knew.... (part 1)

I NEVER KNEW….

Every day I find myself saying, “I never knew…”. In hindsight I knew nothing about babies, having a baby, raising a baby, playing with a baby or putting a baby to sleep. I knew there would be a learning curve but I didn’t know the scale and size of said curve or that it was life-long. There is no way I can document all the things I never knew about babies but I’m gonna try. Here goes…

I never knew I could function on minutes of sleep, not even moments, minutes. I hesitate these days to actually “snuggle in” because those extra seconds of getting comfortable could be spent sleeping or resting if I just stay where I land as I hit the mattress. Sometimes I think about cuddling with my husband when I return from a middle of the night feeding but I know that it could be short lived, will only disrupt his sleep (as if the baby screaming 17 feet away wasn’t going to) and those extra 2 minutes spent getting cozy and close could be the only 2 minutes I get. I usually settle for spooning with the video monitor and a picture of my sweet baby’s rump in the air as she settles in for the night, ie. 3 hours and no minutes. She is better than any alarm clock I have ever had. I can plan my day around her feedings and naps. The nap thing I am pretty proud of because I have put in hours of study and effort to create that routine but all on her own, she has trained me to be available every 2 hours and 59 minutes to feed her. Even at 6 months I know when it has been 3 hours and 1 minute because she is fussing and unhappy. I never knew babies were so prompt.

I never knew babies were so time-consuming. One of my favorite people, Danielle Farnell, did warn me that they were but it didn’t hit home until I actually had a baby. I don’t know how I made it to 30 thinking that play yards were places that you set a baby and they played, in the yard or pack-n-play. I never put more than 20 seconds into thinking about play yards but those 19 seconds I thought about I just assumed you put the kid in there and they played. Never thought about the time because I wasn’t trying to get something done, I just thought they “worked”. Turns out, they do “work” for 4 ½ minutes. You can put a baby in a play-yard and they will play with all 20 toys that you had to mortgage your house to buy, for 4.5 minutes, then they cry. There is nothing better than being in momma’s arms while she is cooking dinner, writing a proposal, vacuuming or folding clothes, it doesn’t matter what the task, the best vantage point is right next to her face, occupying one of her arms. I was not prepared for this, I never knew this. I thought when a mom walked around with a baby on her hip it was for a brief period of time at the mother’s discretion; I didn’t realize the baby was a permanent fixture.

I never knew feeding a baby was a task. I thought you could just sit them in a high chair and give them food. I had a baby for 5.5 months before I realized that feeding was a job. There is a theory that “food is fun until 1”. The baby wrote that theory, not the mom that was employed to feed. The first ten times are fun and then it is work. Have you ever tried to shove a spoon full of yams into an infant’s mouth? Do you think that some mom was just having fun making the spoon into an airplane? No, it was a survival mechanism to get the kid to eat. I had a notion that I would steam zucchini and put it on Ariah’s plate and she would nibble on it until she was content, without crying or throwing it across the table, and once she was finished, we would wipe her hands and be done. Not so much. At first we started sitting as a family at the dinner table, with the tv off, because that is how we wanted to raise our daughter. Now we sit, as a family with the tv off because we realize that the tv distracts her, like a lion and bunny rabbit, and that if I want her to eat anything at all, the tv goes off and we eat like the Cleavers, civilized and focused. 

Little miss Sunshine is up so this is to be continued...