28 days later…

What’s up, internet? My baby friend is a month old! Eight balls for everyone! (No really, who’s buying?)

So yeah, I no longer sleep, I wear nothing but sweat pants and I haven’t touched a comb or a hair dryer in more than a month. Ah, motherhood.

We’re starting to get used to the idea that we have this tiny baby and that by some catastrophic failure of the system, we were allowed to bring her home with us and care for her. We are falling into a routine, getting A LITTLE more sleep and starting to actually feel like competent parents. She’s really bulking up and starting to act more like a human, so I’m less scared I’ll somehow inadvertently kill her. (Although I have had to reconcile my fear of the soft spot with this bizarre urge to jam my finger in it and push…I’m KIDDING.)

No, but yeah: all those wretched clichés people say about babies? All true. She’s amazing, funny, beautiful and I love her so much it hurts. I’ve become such a sap.

Stolen hospital blanket. (Tip to pregnant bitches: steal everything from the hospital that's not bolted down.)

I’ve also done the unthinkable and turned into a smug bitch. I can’t stop myself from visiting all the pregnancy blogs I read and sharing the vast knowledge I’ve acquired during my four weeks of motherhood. I’m aware of this as it’s happening, but like a bad dream, I am helpless to make it stop.

I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you. But not really. Here are some more highlights…

Milk: is flowing like wine. But now I completely understand why so many people give up on breastfeeding within the first few weeks. It kind of sucks. In the hospital when I first started feeding her, she latched on right away and we thought everything was fine, but she lost too much weight (10% of her body weight) and they almost kept us an extra day. (Apparently you have to make sure they’re actually SWALLOWING the milk and not just happily gnawing away at your boob while they starve to death. Crazy, right?) Luckily, her weight shot up that following week, but it was really frustrating and nerve-wracking for a while. (She also tore my nipples to shreds.) But now, I am a milk fucking MASHEEN and have pumped enough to have an impressive arsenal in the fridge and freezer. (Which means I can have a beer now and then! Which I may or may not be having right now.)

Here’s a look at a typical feeding schedule:

AM and PM are irrelevant to my life now.

You’d think I could remember the last time I fed her without having to write it down. Yeah, wrong. Which brings us to…

Sleep: is happening more often. She currently goes 3-4 hours between feedings, which allows me to get some sleep at night. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s made a HUGE difference in my mental state.

I saw every hour on the clock for the first few weeks. I was starting to hallucinate, seeing shadows and junk darting around in my peripheral vision. It was like being on meth, but without the perks. I’d wake up and think the baby was in bed with me. This also happened to my husband a few times: we’d be in this delirious, semi-conscious state, stroking a blanket or cradling a pillow. It would have been funny had it not been so pathetic.

The actual baby: is so, so good. Aside from a nasty case of cradle cap whole body and a blocked tear duct, she is healthy, good-looking and well on her way to fame, adoration and popularity among the huddled masses of less attractive babies.

Things could change, but as of now, we are amazed by how easy and predictable she’s been. She hardly ever cries. She does get fussy and gassy, but she hasn’t had any of those psychotic screaming episodes you often hear about, and for that I am thankful as fuck. At worst, she’ll just go “eh! eh! eh!” for a couple hours and then zonk out. I can totally handle that.

We had planned for her to sleep in our room (the smug, all-knowing Academy of Pediatrics recommend babies room in with you for the first three months), but she hated the Pack N Play and she fussed and whined every time we put her in there. Which is a shame because my parents even bought us this nifty tent to keep the cats out of it:

Cruel and unusual.

So for a while, I slept in the glider in her room while she slept in the crib. (Tip to pregnant bitches: Don’t go cheap on the chair. Even if you have to get your crib out of a Dumpster, buy an obscenely expensive, cushiony, fluffy chair and a matching ottoman. Trust me, it’s worth it.) Now I sleep in my bed and she sleeps in hers and we keep the baby monitor on full blast so I can hear every little gurgle and murmur. I still wish she were in the room with us, but this seems to be working, so I’m not going to try to mess it up. When it’s 3 a.m. and you’re desperate, you’re more willing to break the “rules.” I’d hang her upside down by her toes if she liked it enough to go to sleep.

PAAAAAAAAAAAAANK

Beer: is slowing making it’s way back into my life. The last beer I had before I got knocked up was Pepe Nero, March 20, 2011. 284 days later on December 29 (don’t do the math), I broke my streak with a Three Floyd’s Pride and Joy, and was ridiculously close to being drunk when I finished it.

OH. OH. OHHHHH.

AND AND AND the other night, one of my SUPER AWESOME FRIENDS came over with a Sun King Johan the Barleywine and shared it with me (so I only got half drunk). Also I have four Dogfish Heads in my fridge that I’m saving for a special occasion…or what I like to call “Tuesday.”

So, life is pretty much back to normal.

…

Are you still reading this? Wow. Thanks to those four or five or you who stuck it out! I wish I had a reward for you. All I have is a promise that I’m not going to do these long, drawn out baby updates more than once a month (or even that because let’s face it, I’ve never been able to follow through with any other commitments I’ve made on this blog). And I also promise to keep blogging about beer and (some day) running, sharing witty observations and clever anecdotes and writing mean things about people who I think are stupid, because that’s really the lifeblood of this site. Thanks for reading, you guys. We just might live the good life yet.