One Month
Today you turn one whole month old. Only one month... or already - in this case both terms apply fully. It is amazing how I lost all sense of time ever since you arrived, and how you immediately made us feel like you have always been there, always been a part of us - not just for a mere 4 weeks. You are the missing puzzle piece, you are what finally made us a real family.
I have never experienced such a surge of love before: not just my own love for you, or your Daddy's, but everybody else's as well. You have a way of making people fall in love with you immediately, you have made yourself the center of our family life as soon as they all looked into your tiny wrinkly face for the first time. You have taught me what "unconditional love" really means, and after looking into your Daddy's face after your delivery, and the tears in his eyes, I know that he has learned that too - you made us experience love at first sight in its truest and purest form.
But you have taught us so much more too... patience being on top of that list. I didn't expect to react to your crying with so much patience - I think I have mentioned on occasion how I am the most impatient person I know. Yet, when you cry the only negative feeling that might come up at all is frustration, if I cannot figure out what is bothering you, and how I can help you, never impatience. It hurts me when you are crying and I don't know what the problem is, and I will not stop until I have figured out what ails you - or at least have found out how to make you feel better... and your Daddy is the same way. You know, your Daddy usually isn't too patient of a man either - but since you are here he is like a whole new person: he incessantly carries you around, he tirelessly tries to put you to sleep when you decide to turn night into day again, and he never once rolls his eyes or gets snappy when I expect him to, because he would with every other person on this planet.
You truly are the twinkle in the eyes of your Daddy - I have a feeling that very soon all you will need to do is bat an eyelash at him and you will get a pony, a pink life-size princess castle, and an army of real sparkly fairies along with all the stars in the sky, and if it's the last thing he is doing. I just love watching him and you together, the gleam in his eyes when he looks at you, the pride with which he is beaming, the endless love and patience with which he is caring for you. I couldn't have chosen a better father for my child than your Daddy.
He is calling you the highlight of his day when he comes home from work - and it truly is the highlight of my day when he comes home and picks you up and I get to watch the two of you together.
The only thing about your whole arrival that is a little upsetting is the sad fact that your other set of grandparents, your Mexican ones, are so far away and have no way of getting to know you anytime soon, or to enjoy this incredible atmosphere of love that is surrounding you wherever we take you, and contribute to it. All you got so far was a phone call with your Abuelita... I truly hope that we will find a way soon to get your grandparents here, or for us to take you to México maybe next year to get to know your other side of the family soon.
What else has changed in our lives ever since your much-awaited arrival? I admit, I do miss being pregnant with you, that is to say: I don't miss the discomforts of pregnancy, but I do miss the intimacy between you and I, how I had your every move and kick all to myself, how I didn't have to share you with anybody. BUT - I don't miss it enough to rather have you inside of me than out, in fact I never want to be without you in my life anymore. Sure, the nights could be better, but I am positive that we will soon have a rhythm worked out that will work for all of us. I have noticed some changes already ever since you are born, and we do have somewhat of a pattern now: we bathe you around 9PM, then you sleep on your Daddy's chest on the couch for about two hours, around midnight you start to cry for no apparent reason, which you vigorously keep up until around 1:30 or 2 AM, when we all finally fall asleep. You wake me for a feeding again around 4:30 AM, and then again around 7 AM, when your Daddyis should be getting up to go to work. It is amazing how quickly one can adapt to this little amount of sleep, I think it is safe to say that I haven't slept for more than 3 hours at a time ever since your birth - something I didn't think was compatible with my life at all, considering the long and deep sleeper (and grump-off in lack thereof) I am.
It is also amazing to see what my breasts are able to do! How they, in a matter of a few weeks, went from mere rather useless attachments on my chest to these huge engorged feeding machines that start to ache when you cry with hunger, and can shoot out a stream of milk in a high arch like pistols. I am afraid I have shot you in the eye once already when you let go of an all-too-full breast, and have sprayed your face more than once. Hot showers have an especially drastic effect on this milk-shooting episodes, which actually make me giggle a lot at the hilarity of it. Right now, I feel like I could feed a whole playgroup of children, I have to change shirt and bra sometimes several times a day, and I am leaving milk-stains on my sheet and on the couch and pretty much wherever I lay for longer periods of time, despite my washable rather absorbent bra-inlays. Good thing, you are growing and striving well - at your last pediatrician-checkup you already weighed 4.11 kilos and have grown one whole centimeter!
Time is also blurring by, because every day seems to bring on something new. Either you meet a new friend or relative, or you show us a little more of the personality you are going to be. You went from sleeping for pretty much most of the day to showing us your pretty gray eyes now regularly, and sometimes for 2 hours at a time. You are smiling a lot - experts call it "reflex smiles", because they are not conscious, and not directed at anybody, and happen a lot while you are sleeping, but over the past few days it seems as if they are getting a little more purposeful... not quite, but a little nonetheless. You do it when I change your diaper and blow a raspberry on your tummy - ever so slightly. You do it when we kiss your naked feet, or when we hold a rattle in front of you. It's melting our hearts, it reduces us to helpless puddles on the floor. We can't wait to see more of it.
About two weeks ago you have also started to focus on faces, and follow them around, if they move in front of you. Your Grandpa has been excited to have been the first one to get you to do that. Now you are staring at whoever is looking at you, and are also following your rattle around with your eyes. It's so cute, it makes me want to eat you up whole.
A little less cute is the amount of puke that is coming out of your mouth, and the resulting amount of laundry I have to do. The washer is running almost 24/7 (or so it seems to me), and I have long since given up on ironing your clothes, lest I would never finish, and you'd run out of clothes in a matter of days - even though we have more size 56 stuff for you than you could possibly wear before you grow out of it.
You are incredibly vocal, too. Whenever you are awake, you are making some kind of cute noise, and I am not talking about the crying - which you actually do surprisingly little of. You babble and mumble and make noises that I can only classify as a prototype of squealing. Sometimes you sigh contentedly when you drink, and when you do that it is usually accompanied by a soft popping sound: my heart exploding inside my chest. I cannot imagine you actually talking, but I can imagine that it will be a flood of words coming at us, judging from your current vocal activity. And heck, even your crying and screaming is cute.
Hopefully you enjoyed your first month with us as much as we did with you, even though you had to leave the comfort and warmth of my belly in such a dramatic and unpleasant way. Sometimes when you sleep restlessly, I wonder if you are working on getting over your own birth just as much as I am still working on it. Did you hear me scream like so, and if so - how did it make you feel? Did you feel my stress and my anger with our midwife, and my desperation over not having experienced your entry into this world as I have always dreamed of? Were you aware at how much pain you were causing me? I guess it's a good thing that we do not remember our own births.
We love you to no end,
Mama & Papa
I have never experienced such a surge of love before: not just my own love for you, or your Daddy's, but everybody else's as well. You have a way of making people fall in love with you immediately, you have made yourself the center of our family life as soon as they all looked into your tiny wrinkly face for the first time. You have taught me what "unconditional love" really means, and after looking into your Daddy's face after your delivery, and the tears in his eyes, I know that he has learned that too - you made us experience love at first sight in its truest and purest form.
But you have taught us so much more too... patience being on top of that list. I didn't expect to react to your crying with so much patience - I think I have mentioned on occasion how I am the most impatient person I know. Yet, when you cry the only negative feeling that might come up at all is frustration, if I cannot figure out what is bothering you, and how I can help you, never impatience. It hurts me when you are crying and I don't know what the problem is, and I will not stop until I have figured out what ails you - or at least have found out how to make you feel better... and your Daddy is the same way. You know, your Daddy usually isn't too patient of a man either - but since you are here he is like a whole new person: he incessantly carries you around, he tirelessly tries to put you to sleep when you decide to turn night into day again, and he never once rolls his eyes or gets snappy when I expect him to, because he would with every other person on this planet.
You truly are the twinkle in the eyes of your Daddy - I have a feeling that very soon all you will need to do is bat an eyelash at him and you will get a pony, a pink life-size princess castle, and an army of real sparkly fairies along with all the stars in the sky, and if it's the last thing he is doing. I just love watching him and you together, the gleam in his eyes when he looks at you, the pride with which he is beaming, the endless love and patience with which he is caring for you. I couldn't have chosen a better father for my child than your Daddy.
He is calling you the highlight of his day when he comes home from work - and it truly is the highlight of my day when he comes home and picks you up and I get to watch the two of you together.
The only thing about your whole arrival that is a little upsetting is the sad fact that your other set of grandparents, your Mexican ones, are so far away and have no way of getting to know you anytime soon, or to enjoy this incredible atmosphere of love that is surrounding you wherever we take you, and contribute to it. All you got so far was a phone call with your Abuelita... I truly hope that we will find a way soon to get your grandparents here, or for us to take you to México maybe next year to get to know your other side of the family soon.
What else has changed in our lives ever since your much-awaited arrival? I admit, I do miss being pregnant with you, that is to say: I don't miss the discomforts of pregnancy, but I do miss the intimacy between you and I, how I had your every move and kick all to myself, how I didn't have to share you with anybody. BUT - I don't miss it enough to rather have you inside of me than out, in fact I never want to be without you in my life anymore. Sure, the nights could be better, but I am positive that we will soon have a rhythm worked out that will work for all of us. I have noticed some changes already ever since you are born, and we do have somewhat of a pattern now: we bathe you around 9PM, then you sleep on your Daddy's chest on the couch for about two hours, around midnight you start to cry for no apparent reason, which you vigorously keep up until around 1:30 or 2 AM, when we all finally fall asleep. You wake me for a feeding again around 4:30 AM, and then again around 7 AM, when your Daddy
It is also amazing to see what my breasts are able to do! How they, in a matter of a few weeks, went from mere rather useless attachments on my chest to these huge engorged feeding machines that start to ache when you cry with hunger, and can shoot out a stream of milk in a high arch like pistols. I am afraid I have shot you in the eye once already when you let go of an all-too-full breast, and have sprayed your face more than once. Hot showers have an especially drastic effect on this milk-shooting episodes, which actually make me giggle a lot at the hilarity of it. Right now, I feel like I could feed a whole playgroup of children, I have to change shirt and bra sometimes several times a day, and I am leaving milk-stains on my sheet and on the couch and pretty much wherever I lay for longer periods of time, despite my washable rather absorbent bra-inlays. Good thing, you are growing and striving well - at your last pediatrician-checkup you already weighed 4.11 kilos and have grown one whole centimeter!
Time is also blurring by, because every day seems to bring on something new. Either you meet a new friend or relative, or you show us a little more of the personality you are going to be. You went from sleeping for pretty much most of the day to showing us your pretty gray eyes now regularly, and sometimes for 2 hours at a time. You are smiling a lot - experts call it "reflex smiles", because they are not conscious, and not directed at anybody, and happen a lot while you are sleeping, but over the past few days it seems as if they are getting a little more purposeful... not quite, but a little nonetheless. You do it when I change your diaper and blow a raspberry on your tummy - ever so slightly. You do it when we kiss your naked feet, or when we hold a rattle in front of you. It's melting our hearts, it reduces us to helpless puddles on the floor. We can't wait to see more of it.
About two weeks ago you have also started to focus on faces, and follow them around, if they move in front of you. Your Grandpa has been excited to have been the first one to get you to do that. Now you are staring at whoever is looking at you, and are also following your rattle around with your eyes. It's so cute, it makes me want to eat you up whole.
A little less cute is the amount of puke that is coming out of your mouth, and the resulting amount of laundry I have to do. The washer is running almost 24/7 (or so it seems to me), and I have long since given up on ironing your clothes, lest I would never finish, and you'd run out of clothes in a matter of days - even though we have more size 56 stuff for you than you could possibly wear before you grow out of it.
You are incredibly vocal, too. Whenever you are awake, you are making some kind of cute noise, and I am not talking about the crying - which you actually do surprisingly little of. You babble and mumble and make noises that I can only classify as a prototype of squealing. Sometimes you sigh contentedly when you drink, and when you do that it is usually accompanied by a soft popping sound: my heart exploding inside my chest. I cannot imagine you actually talking, but I can imagine that it will be a flood of words coming at us, judging from your current vocal activity. And heck, even your crying and screaming is cute.
Hopefully you enjoyed your first month with us as much as we did with you, even though you had to leave the comfort and warmth of my belly in such a dramatic and unpleasant way. Sometimes when you sleep restlessly, I wonder if you are working on getting over your own birth just as much as I am still working on it. Did you hear me scream like so, and if so - how did it make you feel? Did you feel my stress and my anger with our midwife, and my desperation over not having experienced your entry into this world as I have always dreamed of? Were you aware at how much pain you were causing me? I guess it's a good thing that we do not remember our own births.
We love you to no end,
Mama & Papa
posted by spreadyourwings at 5:10 PM
2 Comments:
Can't wait to hear more about the little one. Sounds like you're having a marvelous time with her.
I am so happy for you both. It never ceases to amaze me what a transformative experience it is to have a child. One of my very dearest friends, who I felt deep concern for when she became pregnant, has taken so naturally to being a mother. And her personality didn't change, it's just an extension of who she is and part of a potential I never saw in her.
Thank you for sharing your stories. Seeing your fears at the beginning of the process about being too impatient or lazy with housework and all that makes me feel as though I could actually be a mother some day, and a good one at that. Since I wasn't even considering children until a year ago, this is quite a feat!
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