It gets better

Sorry for the radio silence - I've been crazy busy lately, between the working-from-home and the being-Nick's-mom, getting back into my running schedule, and working on he organization. I love being busy, but it certainly makes blogging more difficult.

Anyway, I'm writing because I had a proud mom-moment the other day. I was at my favorite coffee shop, picking up a boba tea. Another mom was sitting outside with a baby in a stroller. She flagged me over and asked me about my son - how old he was, what he was doing at the time, how big he is, etc. Turns out, she has a three week old boy, and this is her first trip out of the house. She was in the throes of overwhelmed first-time parenthood, and wanted to know how long it had taken before I felt "normal" again.

I ended up chatting with her for a while, telling her stories about my experience and assuring her that it does get better. Her baby will sleep, and he will figure out how to nurse. He will learn to entertain himself, and he will stop crying when he hears your voice. I promised her that she would start to feel human again in a week or two, and that it only gets better from there!

I love talking to new/expecting moms and giving advice. I know that all kids are different so my stories are only so helpful... however, I also know that it is extremely comforting to hear what other people are doing, even if only to fool yourself into thinking that your situation is normal. Every new challenge is scary. It is less scary if you know that every other parent has had the same fears, has made the same mistakes, and has experienced the same things.

I know that I have a lot to learn, but it is nice to compare notes with others. And it was fun the other day to be the smooth, confident, knowledgeable mom... at least for a few minutes!

Sleep milestone

SO very happy to report that last night, Nick slept for EIGHT HOURS IN A ROW!

This is my son who woke up every two hours all night long for the first six or so months of his life. It was somewhat disconcerting, because I realized early on that I don't dream if I'm woken up every two or three hours. I suppose I don't have enough time to fall into a deep enough sleep to reach dreams (or at least, to remember them).

Last night, I woke up from an incredibly strange dream where I was in my parent's old house, standing right outside the living room which was completely filled with cockroaches. All size cockroaches. The biggest ones were the size of cats. They weren't moving, but I wasn't sure whether they were dead or stunned or just holding still to trick me into walking into the room.

Anyway, the point is that I woke up from a very rare dream, shocked that I had just been dreaming because my lovely amazing wonderful child had slept through the night!

Standing up!

Today my little boy hit another pretty cool milestone... he pulled himself up, independently, to a standing position. True to form, his inspiration was electronic. We have our Wii system stored in a cardboard box, and Nick crawled over to the box and pulled himself up to see what was inside.

Also, baby has now tasted apples and bananas in addition to the cereal and carrots he tried to start with. He's still not really a fan of solid food, but he's eating it. That's the part that counts. He makes ridiculous faces when he takes in solids... he winces and squints his eyes like the food is burning hot (though it's not hot at all - we feed him room temperature food).

He still crawls and crawls and crawls. Sometimes at the end of the night, he has rug burns on his knees and elbows from dragging them across the carpet. He is definitely enjoying his new mobility!

Microclean

Now that Nick can crawl, we are presented with new house issues. We're not quite at the point of full-on baby-proofing (soon), but we still have to watch where he goes to keep him out of trouble.

I learned that Nick will naturally gravitate towards things he isn't supposed to put in his mouth. In addition to the power cords and remote controls, Nick finds every piece of fuzz, penny, crumpled receipt, candy wrapper, lost pen, etc. that is on our floor. The other day I was checking my email, looked away for about 30 seconds, and when I turned back, Nick had found a cluster of pine needles and was happily gumming them. Yuck!

I have always cared about house cleanliness, but Nick brings it to a new level, which I'm calling "microclean." The sort of clean that occurs when you lie on your stomach in the middle of the floor (no joke, I have done this), checking to see what is visible at four inches off the floor that is invisible when you're four feet away. It's actually kind of gross.

First Easter

This Sunday was baby Nick's first Easter! He is just shy of seven months right now, so he definitely had no idea what was going on. We spent the morning in church, which meant that I spent about 30 minutes pacing back and forth outside bouncing the baby on my hip. I was in good company - there were probably a dozen other little kids outside, getting their wiggles out by climbing on statues, rolling in the grass, and chasing bubbles.

I loved watching the bigger kids because it made me think about what it will be like to have a son who can run and jump and talk to me. In just a few Easters, I will be buying candy, making Easter baskets, and hiding eggs. I have so many fun memories of egg hunts from my own childhood and I can't wait to make new memories with Nick!

Getting bigger!

Baby Nick keeps growing and growing... maybe because he is eating solids now. I had to revamp his closet recently to set aside the clothing he has outgrown, which was a little sad. It was fun, though, to pull out new clothes that he can finally wear now. I remember receiving the onesies and pants when I was pregnant, and being unable to picture a kid big enough to fit inside them... and now my baby stretches them out!

Regarding solids: we introduced carrots the other day - homemade and pureed. Baby didn't seem to like the taste of them, maybe because it was something strange and new. After the first feeding, I regretted picking carrots because orange is a very tough color for clothes and bibs.

More to come.

Observations

1. It is not physically possible to feed a baby solids without making RIDICULOUS faces. Thank goodness no one ever video tapes me feeding him!

2. Time really flies when baby crawls. I used to have moments of relative calm and relaxation when he was awake, when he would lie on his back and be content. Now that he can crawl, I spend most of his awake time making sure that he is not getting into trouble (i.e. eating the remote control or bonking his head on the table).

3. There is nothing better than that moment right after the baby goes to sleep. Except maybe baby laughs. Tied.