I’m Going to Talk Briefly About My Baby Now
I figured if I very carefully said nothing about my baby for three days, I could legitimately do ONE post about her on the way out.
LOOK AT THIS BABY. Isn’t she clearly better and smarter and prettier than all the other babies except yours? Or, if you don’t have babies, your cats/plants/ability to sleep in on weekends?
No, it’s awesome. You don’t have to have one, though. I was perfectly legitimately happy before I had the baby, and I don’t even have a YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE MISSING stance, because, like you may have guessed, that is largely an elaborate conspiracy by people with children to Red Rover you over to the other side.
But having a baby is totally super-awesome, and I really like it, and would recommend it to others. I would describe it as better than not-having a baby, but obviously a lot of that is the hormones and the sense of evolutionary success and the constant positive reinforcement of my decision in the culture.
I was prepared to be militantly crunchy and attachment-y, and stuff, but it turns out that’s also very dependent on your actual baby. Like, I’m breastfeeding and cloth diapering and everything, like a sucker, but she has zero interest in sharing a room with us. In fact, she’s all, “look, it’s nine o’clock. I’m really having fun, but maybe you could swaddle me and put me down and let me sleep for six hours? Go get a glass of wine and watch some Doctor Who, okay? Live a little!” (She’s pretty easy.)
I’m not a better person now. In fact, I’m probably a worse person, because I find myself occasionally pondering what I would do if someone hurt her, and it tends to look like the scenes Eli Roth cut from Hostel for being “too twisted.”
Anyway, that’s pretty much it, but here’s some early-days advice in case you want to go for it:
1. You should probably wake them up at night to feed them until they regain birth weight, or they’ll lose more weight and you’ll have a crying snot-filled meltdown in your ped’s office. Little little babies are not always smart enough to know they’re hungry.
2. Buy the white noise app for your iPhone and blast “Vacuum Cleaner/Air Conditioner/Rainstorm” next to their head at night.
3. Purchase only those onesies and shirts that have the little fold-over hand flap so they can’t gouge themselves in the eye/your nipple with their razor-sharp claws.
4. Never whisper.
This was fun, Pinners! See you in January when Jane takes off for a few days.
xoxoxox
Nicole