Look, let me just put it out there: Having a baby is ridiculous. Sometimes it even borders on ridonkulous. Some of the stuff that happens once you have your bundle of joy will just amaze and terrify you (or is it just me?).
Some examples?
I’ve started talking about myself in the third person.
To a baby. Who doesn’t exactly know what I’m on about, seeing as he’s not even three weeks old yet. I refer to myself as “mummy”. I don’t know when this happened to me but it started so naturally that I didn’t even notice the rot had set in until it was too late.
“Mummy is just going to change your nappy now.”
“Mummy is just going to get you ready for a feed.”
I’ve also started referring to my husband as “Daddy”. Which would be really weird if we didn’t have a kid, but I guess seeing as we got one recently it must be OK. But I won’t lie – it’s still frickin’ strange to me.
Everything is about BOOBS.
I’m attempting to breastfeed (although thankfully I am not quite ridiculous enough to be a breastfeeding nazi) for a while. Every few hours my life revolves around my boobs. The Little Mister is also all about the breast-est-ests. Now all my thoughts are about my boobs.
“Gee, my boobs feel really full. When’s the next feed?”
“My baby makes the most hilarious faces when he’s on the boob.”
“Will my boobs make enough milk for the next feed if I express some milk right now?”
“Where are we going today and will I be required to use my boobs in public?”
It’s all very TMI and yet I feel compelled to tell people (if they ask) about my breast milk coming in and about how many times a day I feed the bub from my lubbly jubblies. It’s such a personal thing and yet it’s so very public. It’s very ridiculous.
There are so many funny moments that just seem so inappropriate for some every day conversations with other humans (the sane ones). I mean, who needs to know that my right boob gushes a lot and sometimes it’s all a little too much for my bub so he just rubs his face in it and makes an enormous mess? No-one needs to know…and somehow I just found a way to tell you all about it (my sincerest apologies to any family members or freaked out friends who are reading this right now).
Also, everyone seems to have an opinion on the matter. It’s enough to drive a sane person batty. At one point this week, I was tempted to write a one line blog post that simply said: “Breastfeeding. Discuss.”
There would most likely have been a sh*t storm and I would have exploded the internet. Fun times.
Everyone keeps telling us that our baby is so darn attractive.
Sure, we think he’s the most ridiculously adorable thing we’ve ever seen in our lives. We’re so sickeningly biased it’s not funny. I always thought that if I was to have an ugly baby I would know. I would just look at him, laugh at his unattractiveness and love him anyway. Turns out I have no idea. I mean, I think he’s good looking for a squishy, grubby looking newborn, but quite frankly I wouldn’t know because I’m so in love.
When people tell us our baby is SO CUTE and that we’ve CREATED A BEAUTIFUL BABY, I mostly get a big head. But then I wonder if people just feel like they should say that? And then I wonder if it’s just darn egotistical that two parents can create a child in their likeness and then be all about how very very good looking they are. Isn’t that just saying that you think you and your partner are very very goodlooking, hence risking sounding full of yourselves?
Sleep deprivation makes you crazy.
One of the first nights we were home from the hospital, I asked my sleepy husband to check the baby’s nappy. He picked up his pillow, being sure to support its neck and carefully carried it towards the change table…before realising halfway that it was not a baby, throwing it back onto the bed in shock. The next morning he begged me not to tell anyone, in case they should think he was nuts. I kept my word, but later he saw the funny side and the story was shared. Now you, dear internets, know the story too 😉
The amount of times I have started sentences, drifted off and then forgotten I had entire conversations is, well…ridiculous! I feel like I can get through a day without completely falling into a coma but obviously I’m in some sort of baby brain survival mode! I think it helps that I was sleepless half of my pregnancy – by this point I’m kind of used to it.
Trips to the supermarket are now very ridiculous.
“How old is he?”
“Oh, he’s so precious and tiny! Cherish every moment! Cherish it!”
“He won’t be like that for very long! Soon he’ll be 14 and answering back to you!”
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“What did he weigh when he was born? My babies weighed *this* and *this*.”
“Oh, look at his full head of hair! What a beautiful baby!”
And that’s before you’ve even figured out how to put him in the baby seat on the trolley, so he won’t fall out or catch fifteen diseases.
It’s kind of fun(ny) and admittedly flattering, but it’s a whole new experience. Each aisle contains a new clucky person craning their neck to get a good view of the exhibit baby. The joy a new baby brings to strangers is incredible! It’s just all a little embarrassing when you look down at him and he’s squishing his face up mid-poo, just as someone gets closer for a good look at the CUTE BABEH. It’s tempting to just run away with the trolley yelling, “NOOOOOOOOO! Don’t smell hiiiiiiim!!!!”
My husband reckons he’s going to go back to the shops without me so he can see how many older ladies he can pull. RIDONKULOUS!
