Howdy gang,
Sorry
for the long silence. If you follow Fatterhood on Facebook I am sure that I
have made everyone quite aware that between my work, weddings, and Elizabeth
teething it has been hard to find any form of free time. Anyways, where do I
even begin at this point? Barring Elizabeth’s injury while we were in Madison,
we had an awesome time. Friday night through Saturday evening she did so well.
She slept through most of the game (Badgers won by the way) and was happy just
to be carried around in her knock of Baby Bjorn. Saturday night/post-injury was
another story though. She did fine as long as she was being held though, so we
broke every rule in the parenting books and had her sleep with us in bed that
night. The next morning she was crabby as all hell, but we could tell that it
was at least starting to feel better. Monday morning it still wasn’t 100% so we
got a little worried and we took her to our pediatrician on Tuesday morning. He
said that since there was almost 3 hours by the time the injury was fixed that
it was just going to take a little longer for it to feel better. By Tuesday
night, it seemed that it was back to being fully functional and the teething
was starting to subside.
During
this whole process though, my wife and I inadvertently taught her that if she
screams that we will pick her up right away. Not the best lesson to give to
your generally good natured and happy-go-lucky baby while she is teething! Even
though it bugged the shit out of us, we did a little bit of “cry it out”
parenting. By Wednesday night, her arm was feeling 100% and her teeth didn’t
seem to bother her so she is pretty much back to her old self now. I am sure
that once her next teeth come in that it will be game over again though. I
really wish that babies would just get all of their teeth in all at once. As a
parent, you would have a really shitty week while they came in, but then it
would be done and over with. My god that would be nice.
I have
started to feel a wee bit better about the injury. After people found out I had
friends, family, and even a few strangers tell me about their horror stories.
My brother-in-law was a big help as he has 2 little girls and was able to cheer
me up. As odd as it sounds, what really made me feel better was finding out
that my mother-in-law had injured my wife’s sister in the same way when she was
2. I know that sounds terrible, but I mean it as a compliment. If my
mother-in-law can accidentally injure her child and still be a great mom, then
maybe I shouldn’t beat myself up too much.
This
past weekend we had yet another wedding. My wife’s sister got married and my
wife and I were both standing up at the wedding. Luckily, my wife has a huge
family on her Mom’s side and we had an entire army of Aunts that were fighting
on who got to hold her. She spent the majority of the day with the Aunts and my
wife’s grandmother. I am told that Elizabeth was in with all of the bridesmaids
while they were getting ready though. Everyone commented on how cute she was
and who they couldn’t believe that she didn’t mind being passed around from
person to person. In general, as long as she isn’t crabby, hungry or wet, she
really is a good natured and happy-go-lucky little kiddo. So it was nice to
hear, but not really a big shock.
The
wedding was nice of course, we did our thing and had fun, but it was really
weird to take that break from being a parent. I had someone watching my child
from about 7am to about 6pm. I hardly even saw her that day. I mean, I guess I
should be used to it since I go to work, but there was just something different
about it this time. After dinner my wife and I hardly put her down at all. It
wasn’t long after the grand march though that my wife accidentally got stuck on
baby/toddler duty. She ended up in the hotel room with Elizabeth and one of my nieces.
Throughout the night she gained 2 more. It was actually really cute and my wife
said she didn’t really mind except she wished we would have danced together.
Luckily we have about 13,847,293,849 more damn weddings yet, so I think we can
fit it in somewhere.
Towards
the end of the dance I was thoroughly drunk. I had started drinking at 6am and
just kind of kept going all day. I was attempting to cut a rug, but I ended up
getting cornered by every damn child at the wedding (minus any that were
sleeping in my hotel room of course). There were these wrestling belts that
were used by the bride and groom in the grand march as my sister-in-law’s
husband is a big wrestling fan. They all kept bringing the belts to me and then
would run away, screaming with delight, as I tried to capture them and put the
belts on them. I had a small army of 4 or 5 doing this for a good hour or so. There
was some rando kid there too, not even sure who the hell she belonged to, but
she was very shy, I mean painfully shy. I am terrible at guessing ages, but she
appeared to be about my niece and my god daughter’s age, so around 4. By the
end of the dance, she was riding on my shoulders and when her grandparents (I
assumed they were grandparents since they seemed too old to be her parents)
came to collect her she started crying. I got her to smile and thanked her for
dancing and playing with me. They told me that she is normally quite shy and
that I must be really good with kids to get her to come out of her shell like
that. They had thought that at least 3 of the kids were mine, again I don’t
know what it is that makes people think that I am old enough to have that many
kids.
I’ve actually
heard from people my whole life about how good I am with kids; toddlers through
teenagers are kind of my wheelhouse though. It seemed to throw people off when I
we found out we were pregnant and had expressed anxiety about having an infant.
“But you’re so great with kids!” they would say. And they aren’t wrong, but a
baby or an infant, is different. It’s not just the fact that they are so
fragile, but the fact that they can’t communicate. With a toddler you can
usually figure you’re way through what they want. They can tell you if they are
hurt, hungry, tired, poop filled, etc. With an infant, they only have one way
of communicating what they want and that is screaming until they are satiated.
Of course, you do learn the differences in their cries, but when you have an
infant that is hungry, wet, teething, with an ear infection then you don’t even
know where to start.
To end
my rant, it has been a crazy 2 weeks with a lot of ups and downs, but for the
most part the 3 of us came out unscathed. A lot of stress, a lot of riding in
cars, not a lot of sleep, and an insane amount of drinks have been had
(seriously… Saturday alone it was 6am-4am. You read that right. 22 hours of
drinking), but we seem to be figuring this parenting shit out ok. As per usual,
I thank you for reading and I invite you to check us out on Facebook. Other
than that, I will hope to have a few more posts up this week so check back
soon. Prost!
No comments:
Post a Comment