In just a few short months, my son will be 1 year old. The time has flown by and while I still feel like a very new mom, I think I might be stripped of that title once my son hits the walking stage and a brand-new crop of babies makes its arrival. I guess it's warranted considering there is no longer much that can shock me about babies. The biggest lesson I've learned is that babies and parenting are totally unpredictable and uncontrollable entities. Here are some wacky new-mom moments that threw me for a loop, but are hilarious now:
He's knocked out. During the early weeks of our son's life, my husband and I would wear him in the baby carrier and walk around to put him to sleep. It usually worked well, but we had to wait until he was in a good deep sleep before we took him out and transferred him to his Pack 'N' Play. My husband would often walk him around for a few minutes and when his eyes closed he would promptly declare, "He's knocked out!". The baby would wake up as soon as my husband took him out, almost every time. I repeatedly showed him the signs of a deep sleep, but it took him a long time to recognize them. Soon, "he's knocked out," became one of my least favorite phrases because, well, he mostly likely wasn't.
The first blowout. When our son was a few weeks old we attended a family barbecue. My husband–who worked night shift at the time–was snoozing on the couch in the basement when I went to pick my son up out of his carseat and I realized that his clothes and the seat were covered in liquidy newborn poop. I handed the baby to family member, ran to the basement door and shouted "Dan, quick. I need backup." He raced up to me in a sleepy haze and we carried the naked baby to the shower and stuck his bum directly under the faucet. Of course, all we had in the way of extra clothes was a hoodie.
All out of diapers. I make a point to keep at least three fresh diapers and a full baggie of wipes in our diaper bag at all times, but a few months back I must have forgotten to check before we left the house. We were at an Ikea–which of course is a half-day trip at minimum–and I had already stopped to nurse and change the baby. He hadn't pooped, but since his diaper was pretty soaked, I changed him anyway. I noticed that it was the last diaper in the bag, but I was sure he wouldn't poop within the next couple of hours. Well, just as we were heading for the exit, my husband heard and felt the telltale signs. Not only had he pooped, but it was similar in proportion to the aforementioned blowout. I dug a cloth diaper that we used as a burp cloth out of the diaper bag, ran to the bathroom, cleaned him up and tied the diaper around him. Well, just as soon as I handed him back to my husband, he peed right through it. We were out of options — needless to say our baby had a pretty damp ride home.
Hairball. Not long ago, my son was crawling around on the floor while I was cooking dinner and I noticed that he was chewing on something. I went over to check what it was but couldn't find anything, so I continued cooking. The next time I checked on him, he was still chewing, so I sat him down and dug around in his mouth thinking I would find a piece of paper or some sort of food scrap, but no, it was a tiny hairball from one of our two very furry Pomeranians. I was pretty grossed out and extremely thankful that he didn't choke on it. But yeah, kinda funny.
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