OK, so I feel more and more pleased with my choice of title for this blog. It just sums up my whole life in the last year or so. Anyhow, the Little Mister is now three calendar months old. Tomorrow he will be 14 weeks old. Except I will only say how many weeks he is in age in front of other new parents because I do recognise how silly it sounds to go around telling everyone your baby is 1654 weeks old just because you want everyone to know how your baby is still so cute and new, even though by my calculations he/she would be approximately four and a half years old by then.
I made a vow with myself that I would stop announcing the Little Mister’s age in weeks (out loud) after he turned 3 months of age. I also now make a vow that after he turns 18 months old, I will stop announcing his age in months. That’s not cute either when you’re telling everyone your kid is 8723 months old, when really he/she’s …726 years old. Um…I never said I was good at mathematics.
So, where was I?
Yep, the Little Mister is three months old and so far his life has been one big surprise made up of tiny little daily surprises along the way. Kind of like one of those Russian doll thingys where there’s one inside the other, inside the other, inside the other…you know the ones.
I used to think that babies this young wouldn’t really be that aware or so attached to the adults in their lives. Perhaps it was a defence mechanism for me to believe that because I was adopted at five months old and all my life I’ve believed that I wouldn’t have really noticed what was going on when I was taken from my biological mother at birth, placed with a foster mother and then flown to Australia to be with my real family five months later. Each day I see the Little Mister recognising me with a huge grin on his face, looking for me when I am out of his line of sight and doing the same with his dad. He also has a special relationship with my mum. He will never remember any of this time of his life on a conscious level when he’s older, but it makes me realise what a special time this is in shaping this little being. When he’s five months old, I will be looking at him as he is at that time and reflecting. For me that will be a very significant time. Each day I am so happy for him that he will never be given away.
On a less serious note (sorry for a sudden change in tone): OMFG. The drool. So much drool. I mean, I knew that little kids dribble and that babies are supposed to be notorious for this, but I must say I was not mentally prepared for that at all! My firstborn child could fill an olympic sized swimming pool every day! I actually have dry spots on the top of my arms from where he has dribbled daily. I now have to moisturise my upper arms. Because of the drool. Who would have seen that coming?
He drools on my clothes, his clothes, his playmat, his toys, the couch, and every part of his own body from the lower facial region down. He immerses himself in a thick, gooey slick of saliva. If I let my guard down for just a minute I find myself having to wipe him down completely. His chin, his shoulders, his legs. Even his poos are more runny now because of the sheer volume of saliva he swallows. His productivity levels are at an all time high! And he’s not even teething yet!
I am a mushy, gushy mess. I always knew that I’d be a sentimental old crackpot one day. Probably because I’ve always had a corny greeting card kind of brain all my life. I thought, oh yeah. I’ll pop out an infant and he’ll be cute and I’ll be all oh my gosh I’ve got to protect this child like a mama bear and celebrate all his tiny developmental milestones and I’ll finally know all that crap other mothers go on about when they say that having a child is when you realise just how much room is in your heart for another little being blah blah. But let’s be honest, I kind of thought I was a bit cool. I thought I wouldn’t get all weepy and annoyingly sensitive about it all. Now I can’t watch a TV show where someone has just given birth and I certainly can’t watch an item on the news about someone’s baby being ill or worse, dying because I become a soppy, sobbing mess. All I have to think about is what it felt like to finally have Little Mister in my arms (after being separated from birth for three long days due to illness) or to imagine what it could have all turned out like if I hadn’t had amazing hospital care and I just well up with tears. Yep. Ever seen the opening scenes of the movie Jersey Girl? The part where J-Lo dies in childbirth of an undetected aneurysm and Ben Affleck is torn between grieving his wife and loving his new baby???? Holy sh*tballs. I watched that the other day (for the first time) and let’s just say my tear production was as prolific as the Little Mister’s saliva production levels.
Right now I am a stay at home mum. I don’t have a paying job to go back to (it’s a long story that started long before I got pregnant), so I’m really living the life of a housewife. I keep myself busy socially and fill my days with Little Mister as much as I can so that we’re both entertained and learning all the time. My hubby works shift work which is great in some ways (he gets a bunch of rostered days off in a row each swing), but not so great in other ways (when he’s working his shifts the baby and I don’t really see him for four days straight). This can get very tiring while my husband is working as I am tending to the Little Mister from the moment he wakes in the morning until the moment he wakes the next morning. I don’t get any assistance during those few days (my own stubborn decision) so I look forward to my husband’s days off when I can spend time with him, enjoy being a little family together and have some time “off”. Firstly, I never thought about it all that way before the birth. I just thought it would be so easy because my husband’s job is so good. Now I realise it’s more challenging than I anticipated, although I am still very fortunate as a lot of new mothers in my area have husbands who have to fly out for a week or two at a time to work.
Another thing is that I can be absolutely freaking exhausted and grumpy. I can be tired of the constant nappy changing, drool wiping, baby soothing, sleep settling, bottle warming, feeding, carrying of baby everywhere, having to do everything while he’s napping, sleeplessness, baby talking, skill building activities, the juggling and the usual daily new parent worries. I can be SO excited about my husband taking over for a night so I don’t have to wake up and deal with it. I can be SO excited about being able to leave the baby with his daddy while I go out for a bit (even to the supermarket). Yet, no matter how much I think I need a break, I can’t help but wake in the middle of the night to secretly peek at my baby’s gorgeous little head of hair while my husband bottle feeds him. I can’t help but feel a little sad when I leave the house. I can’t help but get excited when I’m on my way home. Even when I am on middle of the night feed duty, if that little bugger gives me a cheeky grin because I’ve come to prepare him for a feed at 3am, I can’t help but still feel a ridiculous amount of love and affection for him.
That, most of all, blows my mind. I am the kind of person who has been grumpy when tired since day dot. You (an adult) wreck my sleep and I will hack you into tiny pieces and hide you in the walls of my house (or at least threaten to very very loudly and sincerely until you are scarred for life and promise to never ever do that again). My husband would know. When I was working full time, he was DEAD MEAT if I lost even a minute of my precious eight hours of sleep. To think that a little tiny human can change my perspective so much is just craziness! Just when you think you can’t go on another full day or night, something just pulls you through. I realise I have so much more energy and love to give than I ever gave myself credit for in the past. If I’d known I had this in me all along, man I would have done things so much differently! I think this is my favourite job so far in life and I’ve had some pretty cool ones. Now if only I could figure out how to get paid for it…
While most of this blog post is very deep and meaningful, there is something else that I was Awesomely Unprepared for. I have become vain and baby proud. I can hear you audibly gasping. Kez? Is that you?? NO YOU DI’INT!
When I can’t dress the Little Mister in a super cute outfit for the day I am super not-so-cutely disappointed. The idea that people of the general public may be viewing my baby and he’s not wearing a super cute outfit just disappoints me so much ( disturbingly too much). And when he’s dressed in the best outfit ever, but no-one ends up seeing it I feel a similar disappointment. Like I wasted his outfit for the day. Kind of like when I would dress up so beautifully to go clubbing with my girlfriends on a Saturday night only to find out it was just going to be a crappy night and that I’d wasted an outfit on it when I could have just worn a potato sack for all anyone cared.
Ha! Clubbing. Ancient history…
The reflective glory I seek out via adorable/quirky baby outfits is quite worrysome. I never thought I would become so shallow! I post so many pictures of my son on Facebook that it’s ridiculous. I never thought I would catch that disease, but I have. I am now your annoying friend who thinks everyone should click “like” on her plethora of boring baby photos. I am so sorry. But don’t you know? It’s only OTHER babies that are boring. My baby is so much more interesting even though he’s doing all the same things as the other babies in all of the other baby photos on Facebook.
I’m only a smidgen away from entering the Little Mister into modelling auditions and hiring an agent for him, before ending up on some kind of horrendous, exploitative reality TV show. I disgust myself!
So in summary, I don’t even recognise myself anymore. My life has been turned upside down in the last quarter of a year!
What have you been up to in the last three months?
