Fabulous Miss S.

Feature this Mike Rowe

You know that show Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe where he meets up with some blue collar laborer type and learns all about some massively disgusting job that must get done like how they clean out that vacuum truck after it has sucked out a truck-load of port-a-johns.  Yeah, anyway, motherhood?  Here's a dirty job for ya!

We awoke this morning to find a pile of horked up cat food on the floor complete with a large hairball within.   The discovery went something like this:

MARC: Stacy come here now you need to see this.

ME: Coming ....

MARC:  No. Now.

ME: Okay. It's cat barf.

MARC: No, look!

ME: That's just a hairball, not a barfed up mouse.

MARC: No, LOOK AGAIN WOMAN.

ME: Ew. Are those ants crawling in from the front door and swarming the entire pile of cat barf?

MARC:  How are YOU going to clean THAT?

So that was the morning.  Dear Mike Rowe, this here is my dirty job, and, oh, there is more.

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I took the dog for a walk this afternoon and he pooped as far away from home as possible.  While dutifully picking up after my pet my hand punctured the plastic bag, and, well ... it was an awkward walk home.

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Tonight I decided to hope in the bathtub with Noah.  Marc undressed him and took off his diaper, wrapped him a towel and brought him into our bathroom.  We bathed and it was nice. He goes totally limp in the warm water and it is a special bonding time.  It's also much easier to just get in the damn tub with him because I end up soaked anyway.  Marc stood at the ready with a towel for Noah and I handed him off and got out myself, drying off with the towel that was right there on the counter.  After I was dry and dressed, I realized that there was some sort of yellowish stain on the towel.  I looked at Marc and said, "I hope that didn't come from me."  He looked back at me and reminded me that that was the towel he had wrapped Noah in before the bath.  So basically, I took a bath and then toweled off with a towel that had baby shit on it. 

Essentially, there was a lot of poop in my life today.  If it can come out of a baby or an animal, chances are I have to deal with it intimately. 

I feel like I have just passed the hazing of motherhood.

Why shopping with an infant isn't good for my health/very slowly shrinking waist line

Noah has become a more regular part of my life.  At first, when I needed to go out to the store I spent hours trying to plan the logistics of getting him into the car, keeping him calm in the car, and then getting into the store and I would fall asleep thinking of all the horrible things that could go wrong.  It has been twelve weeks and I am starting to feel like Noah isn't an intruder in my life but an extension of me that I'm comfortable traveling with out of the house. 

I am able to go out to Target, the grocery store and actually not die.  I can pack Noah into the car, although I repeatedly don't dress him warmly enough, but, eh... his car seat does keep him remarkably warm.   

I have found that I can successfully and predictably go out to the store and get everything on my list.  However, regularly and without fail, I can expect that when I am exactly three quarters of the way through my shopping list, Noah's bottom lip will turn down, start to quiver and he will let out a wail that I know, I just KNOW, screams HELP! MY MOTHER IS HURTING ME SAVE ME NOW, and my blood pressure rises and I end up buying Oreo Cakesters, Fruit Roll-Ups and BBQ Fritos just because they are on sale.  And then I eat them all in the car on the way home.

Feeling the weight of the diaper bin

The lather, rinse, repeat nature of my life right now hasn't let up too much although it is getting a little more predictable and therefore, dare I say, manageable?  It seems that each time I celebrate a small step in the direction of structure, Noah dictates a large step in the direction of disorder.  So I have been hesitant to update on the daily ups and downs of Noah's sleeping habits. 

Noah still sleeps with me, mostly.  I have had some nights of great success with him sleeping in the Snuggle Nest, or Target's Close and Secure Sleeper.  By success, I mean, he sleeps for two hours, wakes, nurses, sleeps a bit more, rinse, repeat, etc. The celebration here is that he is sleeping independent of my body.  We have had a few outside occasions when Noah has slept in his swing overnight for EIGHT hours straight.  I slept next to him on the sofa, thinking it would only be about an hour before he woke up.  Little did I know. I had to get up and pump because about midway through his magical night of swinging sleep my boobs, firm and hard, were something that would make Pam Anderson jealous.  Overall, attempting to establish and follow a bedtime ritual  of a bath, reading, nursing and putting on pajamas has been the most successful thing so far.  At just under three months old I guess his sleeping patterns are nothing to worry about.  I'm grateful to be able to stay home and allow him to maintain  this schedule.

Me, on the other hand... I do not sleep so well anymore. It has now been over three months since I have had a full and restorative night of rest. I honestly feel like I may never sleep again.  I know I may never go to sleep again with the naive innocence that I once I had where I just went to bed when I wanted and woke up when I wanted.  I am having more frequent days of the utter sleep-deprived bone-numbing fatigue that seems to kick my ass to hell and back.  I've been an absolute bitch to way too many people and I fear I have damaged relationships but dear god people need to realize how paralyzing it is to keep a newborn alive.

Speaking of ass-kicking I attempted Turbo Jam this morning and only sat down for about half of it.  Now I'm actually feeling sore in my legs and back so perhaps it will live up to all of its accolades.  I also walked on the treadmill for awhile too and Noah dutifully slept in his bouncer-seat thingy just long enough for me to take a very rushed shower afterward.  I am slowly, SLOWLY losing weight (but the damn M&Ms keeping calling to me) but it is hardly evident in the muffin-toppy waist line, saggy arms and Santa-ish belly like a bowl full of jelly.  And if one more person says nine months on, nine months off I might explode because I am not waiting nine months for this utterly un-sexy flabbiness to dissipate.   I have never felt less attractive in body, or face ... my hair  has started the post-pregnancy fall out a bit but with my last haircut dating to LAST SEPTEMBER I am more bothered by the dry split ends and uneven layers that hang so heavy I can't maintain a ponytail.  And scheduling a haircut, even a SuperCuts trim involves heroic baby-watching measures and is just outside the realm of totally impossible.

On a far more personal note, I managed to poop yesterday.  Dual meaning here, I was able to leave the sleeping baby in a sleeping-baby-holder long enough to go to the actual bathroom for a few minutes and thanks to some colace and shit-loads of fiber (pun intended) I was able to actually poop.  No one tells you that after a C-section your intestines will never again work like normal.  (Dad, this paragraph was meant for you in an effort to spice up this blog.)

30.

Dear Marc,

Happy 30th Birthday!
May all your days be this happy.  We love you.

For a long time I really wanted to give you a big fancy schmancy 30th birthday bash.  Maybe even of the surprise nature.  But, a little man who we secretly call our "third wheel" sort of upstaged any grand events for this current birthday season.  I hope you understand.  I'll aim for a big one for your 40th.  Until then, I love you.

Baby Pictures

We took a family outing today!

The baby!

The mother-in-law!*

And we all  I survived and only a little bit of milk spilled.  Here are some pictures to prove we left the house.  And I even took a shower first.

We celebrate the small things around here.

Hey! For all of ya'll local DC peps ... does this, um, setting, look familiar?


Noah, and his Grandma Sandy's hand.


Noah, Grandma Sandy's hand and some serious nostril space. 

* NOTE: I emphasize mother-in-law in this entry only for reader effect.  Honest.