One Month Photo Shoot!

Tomorrow Ardyn is one month. I have learned lots of things in my first month of motherhood. First of all, if the burp rag isn't within reach, she will spit up, even if she hasn't spit up in two days. If you move her diaper out from under her and don't put the next one immediately under her, she will pee. Up to her armpits. If you take the sheets off the bed to wash and decide to sit there and breastfeed her, she will have her first ever scientifically astounding "escape poo" and you will feel mustard yellow baby poop running down your side and your thigh and onto the $45 waterproof mattress pad that you bought to cover your new $1200 King sized Sealy Posturpedic... "in case your water broke on it" and you realize that not only is this irony at it's finest... but that you literally came THIS CLOSE to washing the mattress pad along with the sheets, at which point the bed would have been temptingly naked and perhaps soiled beyond belief... not to mention your "warranty voided." (that was today's lesson.)

I also learned that the second you tell someone she slept through the night, she will go back to eating every 3 hours. The second you decide that you could take a little nap with her and it's probably okay for her to cuddle up with that soft blankie, you wake up to her with the entire blanket pulled up over her head and feel HORRIBLE and guilty and like the worst mother on the face of the earth.

And the number one lesson that I have learned, despite everything we talked about and everything I thought... Just like every single good mother I know, While she may physically and legally be HALF mine, Responsibility wise she is easily 85-90% mine. No matter how much your husband promised and tried to do "his half," What you are really getting is like 10%. If you are lucky, 20%. Even at his best, he seems to be giving 20% and thinking that he's giving 50%. How DOES this happen? As soon as the first two weeks of novelty wore off, I am the mom that can't poop, can't eat, forgets to brush her teeth, never puts on clothes, and has ten thousand hald washed loads of laundry in the basement because she can't spend enough time down there to get anything pre-treated (poop!), washed, dried, and folded. Yeah. That's me. Please don't come visit me. At least once a day, as I am sitting on the couch in my underwear (literally) with my boob in my daughter's mouth, my hair in the messiest ponytail ever (it looks like I put it in a ponytail four days ago... all the time!) and the TV remote and burp cloth poised within reach... I think to myself "If some poor soul decides to drop by and come to my front door right now, I would be so embarrassed for them." Ahhhh.

I discovered that even though I really want to poop, (okay, I don't, but I don't have a choice, due to the Colace I take daily to avoid aggravating the post-partum hemorrhoid) as soon as I have to, it's like the entire planet clears of life, and I am forced to do everything with her either screaming in another room because she got put down (translation=end of the freaking world) or with her riding shotgun in the sling while I try not to cry as the undercarriage feels like it's going to rip apart again. (really it's not that bad anymore... thanks Colace!) Maybe they will send me a free lifetime supply.

And if I want to eat, I have to put her in the sling so that I can make something, and so that I can eat. I am hoping that she will soon become more independent, as she gets older and better at entertaining herself and enjoying toys. I have tried putting her down and letting her cry, but she gets to the point of serious meltdown. Then she will be even MORE attached to me the rest of the day, in case I try to put her down again. there are certain times of day that she is more independent. Anytime before about 1pm. She wakes up happy. She stays happy while I eat breakfast (if I remember) and also will sit in the bouncy seat while I take a shower or bath, and usually lets me dry my hair. That's my favorite time of day. She smiles and coos and is all around just fun. Silly faces. Doesn't mind if I put her down and do some laundry, or pick up around the house, and if I put her in the sling she will really hang out with me.

Nights and afternoons aren't bad, she just has more frequent feedings, more frequent meltdowns, and wants to be held constantly, even when she's sleeping. The "hold me while I am sleeping" has gotten worse in the past couple of days. I think it's the result of her recent growth spurt. Luckily there seems to be more milk now, so her clustered feedings are back to happening at night.

Tonight I (again) had to tell Evan that I really could use a second to myself. Just a little bit. Why can't he hold her just because... and why do I constantly have to ASK him to hold her, when initially he was constantly offering or asking to hold her? Argh. Why is it that he can disappear to the basement for HOURS and I can't even poop for 5 minutes by myself? Argh. I wonder how he would feel to have to ask someone else's permission to go to the bathroom. Tonight my concern is being able to get her to sleep long enough for me to get the sheets and mattress protector finished washing and drying, and make the bed, before we go to sleep for the night.

On top of all this, the stupid town has to have a boil order so that it's even more difficult to do dishes and sterilize pacifiers and breast pump parts. That's another thing... I have been trying to pump once a day so that I can get a stock of milk frozen, and start Evan giving her one bottle a day... to get her accustomed to it. But the most annoying thing is that I can't even PUMP without holding her. So now I use my 8 octopus arms to hold her body, her head, the breast she's feeding from... AND the breast pump and the other breast... while I am pumping. So she eats and I pump simultaneously. Of course the past 3 days I haven't pumped as she is still using up everything in the morning as a result of her growth spurt and increasing my supply. Otherwise I was washing the pump in super hot soapy water, and then sterilizing it for extra long because of the boil order. And we didn't even KNOW there was a boil order until we tried to brush our teeth one morning and the water came out yellow. Then when Evan went to Casey's he saw a sign for boil order. I hate that there's no way to notify us, unless we listen to the local AM radio (riiiiight. We are so into AM radio around here.)

So tomorrow we take Ardyn for her hearing test (FINALLY the hospital got their machine fixed) and to weigh her. I wish my hotsling was going to be here tomorrow instead of Tuesday. Then I could wear her to the hospital instead of lugging the carseat. I guess I could wear the ring sling... but she spit up on it twice today and I haven't even begun to think of washing it let alone figuring out how to get it back into ring format again! Jeez!

I'm hoping that Evan will hold her more this week, so that I can do fun things like go to the bathroom and load the dishwasher. Or even better, maybe I can paint my toenails! And since she's one month, I can instruct him to give her a bottle if she gets hungry during my toenail painting. Although I am sure I could breastfeed and paint my toenails at the same time, LOL.

As I type this I am watching what appears to be an all night marathon of LA Ink, and Pixie is crying because she has to have her tonsils out and can't deal with taking a week off work. Um. Yeah. A week off work is a real shame. I am trying to figure out how I am going to get out of work forever. LOL. Although I am out until mid December.

So this entire weekend, we have tried to go out to eat. Evan seems to be anti-"wife leaving the house to have fun" although he would choke me if he thought that I thought that. It's just that he wants to always go get food and bring it here and doesn't ever want to take Ardyn and I out to eat. Last weekend we were supposed to go out on Saturday with my parents but my dad was sick. Friday night he promised we would go out to eat but he didn't get home till almost 8 and by then Ardyn and I were both so tired that we were doing a tandem nap and nurse session in bed. We ended up not going anywhere. Again. Last night we had plans to go to Peru and get Ardyn's first photos taken... and then I had a book to pick up that I had ordered, wanted foundation from Bare Escentials that I had run out of, and wanted to get another sleep bra (nursing) from Target- followed by supper.

Of course, after a 1 hour turned 2.5 hour photo session (ack) and Evan acting like we needed to leave and go home instead of picking up the book that I had ordered almost two weeks ago and getting foundation that I needed... I convinced him that we would be fine. He seems to think that there is too much of a risk of her getting upset in public. So we are quarantined to home. We meaning Ardyn and her milk supply... not Ardyn's dad. So when we left the mall, I breastfed her in the car, and I requested that we eat at Applebees while Evan tried to convince me that we needed to go through a drive through at Arby's or Steak and Shake (fancy!) and then sat in the front seat cranky and complaining of a headache. I also had a headache, but since I now need to fit that Martyr Mother Profile, and since it's easier to shut my mouth and listen to him complain... I gave him my last two Ibuprofen from the diaper bag and we went to the Arby's drive through as Ardyn screamed from her car seat and I sat in the backseat with her and tried to console her. So my headache kept getting worse as she screamed and before we even got to Arby's she was asleep. And Applebee's was already behind us and it was ANOTHER night of failed attempt to go out to eat.

Well, she's now asleep (finally!) and lying down without me holding her (Finally!) and so I think I will sneak down and dry the mattress pad..... Be right Back....

Okay... so now I am making myself a list of things that I need to accomplish, and will show it to Evan to see if there is anything he can do, or if he can watch her while I accomplish something... and this will hopefully help me to get more things done with the few minutes I do have. Since I am tired enough that my brain has stopped functioning.

So tomorrow is one month. And all of the above is happening. And you know what... it is still worth it. And you wanna know why?








Yep... that's why. See the rest of the photo shoot HERE.