a letter to the kid: month 1
Dear Harrison,
Hey kid! Welcome to the world! You made it! So, this is life. You’ll dig it here, as soon as you can – you know – see things and hold your head up to look around. It’s filled with all kinds of great things like fresh cut grass, music, bike rides, sandboxes and food! Oh, man, you’re going to love food!
So far so good. You are alive. Yep, still breathing each and every night. I don’t even have to check anymore (by the way – Maggie – thanks for the mirror under the nose trick – saved me poking him each night). You have figured out how to eat, poop and sleep all on your own. You are gaining weight like a champ – about 2.5 ounces per day for the past two weeks – you weigh 10lbs 14oz as of yesterday! That’s WAY more than “they” say breastfed babies will gain. I even called your doctor to make sure that everything was cool – they were impressed and said, that yes, all is good. Thanks to the weight gain “Beefy Cheeks” has been added to your list of nicknames.
At this point it’s hard to report back to you what exactly you are like, because with any luck your personality is still developing, otherwise we’ll have to send you off to college with people describing you as a total spaz of an eater, a cry-baby (especially when it comes to diaper changes) and a pretty good sleeper (unless you are up too long in which case, you completely loose your $#!^ and your dad walks around the house holding you muttering things like, “this kid is insane… this kid is absolutely insane… what are we going to do?”).
So, what’s it been like for us, you ask? I’ll try to turn on my brain long enough to remember back through the past four+ weeks…
You were born after 33 hours of labor. Try to think about what that means for a minute. 33 hours (like watching 16 movies back-to-back) of contractions (contractions are like a muscle cramp all the way around your middle – like all your guts decide it’s time to move on and they attempt to rip themselves from the connective tissue that holds them in place) – yes, they only lasted about a minute at a time, but, there were a lot of them. The pain I could and did handle pretty well – the harder part was for your dad and me to try our very best to not totally freak out about the fact that we were about to have a BABY! Here’s where we could totally sugar coat this for you, but, we may as well be honest. We planned to have you – we tried to have you. But, even now, as you are a month old, questions about our sanity start to creep in. Questions to ourselves about whether or not this was a good idea. Whether or not we can handle this. Whether or not we will be any good at this. Because I gotta tell you, hanging out with an infant 24 hours a day is not always a walk in the park. BUT, yes, there is a but – you are about to start smiling based on actual feelings and events… that is something to look forward to.
We have had some help over the past two weeks – the grandparents – part 1 and 2 – came to stay with us all. This was supposed to help us transition back into work… that wasn’t really the case, because we never really took any time off. I guess there was that day I gave birth, and the day after in the hospital we didn’t do much other than stare at you and upload photos of you, since we were getting phone calls from California demanding proof that my mom did indeed, FINALLY, have a grandchild! But, that third day, I actually took a meeting with a client in the hospital. The circumstances were extenuating, but, still, I know this was truly bad form, but, let’s be real – this is who I am. I really dig my work. And yes, I dig you and your dad more – but, we all have to learn to live together – you, me, your dad and our business.
We’re starting to figure out this roller coaster you’ve got us on. The secret ingredient to making sure the ride is smooth so that nobody looses their corndog? SLEEP. For you and in turn us. You are a COMPLETELY different creature when you’ve had enough of it. I am guilty of trying to entertain you too much. I figured out that background music, me singing over it, shaking a toy at you, rocking you and patting your back – at the same time – is the equivalent of me being subjected to a Hannah Montana concert – overwhelming and terrifying. I get it – I promise to chill out.
You are gorgeous and healthy. A constant challenge. And disarmingly sweet – overall. Thank you so very much for joining our family.
Love, momma
Listening: Coldplay
It sounds like things are going along swimmingly. You and Marc are on the cusp of loosing it, he is gaining like a champ, and soon he will smile further wrapping you in his web. He is changing so fast, gaining an all. Soon it will be hard to recall that he was once so small.
I will never forget one of my good friends calling me when her baby was about 4 weeks old crying and saying “I cannot do this. Whoever thought I could be a mom was wrong. Someone needs to come get this kid.” I didn’t 100% understand it at the time but then when Tyler was about that age and we didn’t know of his soy intolerance, we had THE DAY where he literally cried all day long and my friend Nikole told me to go get Gripe Water (which works by the way and is homeopathic) so Todd said he was going to go to Whole Foods to get it and my response was, “you’re going to leave me here alone with HIM?” Of course now it is all funny. I love Harrison’s beefyness.
You will look back on these days in a year and wonder how it possibly went so quickly. Enjoy each and every moment- even the freak out moments- because they grow up and away from you too quickly!
You two sound like you’re doing great!