So long, farewell
So, this marks my last post on the TummyTime blog. Sniff, sniff. When I started writing here, I was nineteen weeks pregnant with New Baby. The first trimester ickiness had passed, and I was feeling pretty good. We weren’t sure if the baby was a boy or a girl, and we certainly had no idea what the poor kid’s name was going to be. Over the next five months, we found out the gender of New Baby, Emily finally learned how to walk at nearly twenty months, I almost failed my diabetes test, I worried about New Baby’s arrival and nursing, New Baby and I both grew a lot, and we prepared for his arrival. With two days before his delivery date, we finally picked a name for New Baby – Joshua. Then, on June 28, for the first time in three deliveries and recoveries, the delivery went as planned
He moves! On purpose!
When Nathan was a baby, we were still living in Boston, the world of tiny, expensive apartments. My friend Stephanie had had a baby about a year before Nathan was born, and her daughter was the first grandchild on her husband’s side. Grandma was very excited about the new baby and spent a small fortune on all the baby paraphernalia you could ever want. The problem was that Stephanie’s apartment just wasn’t big enough to store everything. So instead of filling every closet she had with the baby items, she loaned them out to the rest of us. It was awesome. One of the favorite items we received was a baby playmat. Nathan loved to sit there and watch the animals and listen to the music. When we moved here and had Emily, Stephanie’s playmat was still back in Boston, so we had to pick up our own. Emily also
Sleeping Babies
One of the hardest aspects of having a newborn is the accompanying lack of sleep. Circumcisions and belly buttons (unless you’re Joshua) usually heal in about a week. The feeding difficulties are usually ironed out in the first few weeks after birth. Even day sleep starts getting organized and consolidated somewhere after they turn six weeks. Night sleep, though, can be a precious commodity for months for many moms and babies. If you can get a good night’s sleep, you can handle everything else so much better. You have the patience and energy to maybe clean the house, cook dinner, or at the very least be patient with your newborn. They always tell you to nap with your baby, but that really only works with the first baby. With Nathan, I could more readily sneak in naps throughout the day – there was no one else who needed me. With
Joshua at Playgroup
Our church organizes a playgroup every Wednesday morning, and the kids and I are faithful attendees. Nathan and Emily have a blast playing with their friends at different parks around town, and I enjoy talking to other moms. Joshua is pretty much there for the ride. Playgroup is one of the highlights of our week. Last week, playgroup was held in the backyard of one of the moms from church. She had set up chairs, blankets, sprinklers and splashy pools. The kids had a great time running around, playing in the water and enjoying all the other fun things that were there and eating as many animal crackers as their little tummies could hold. The moms had a great time talking and getting to know some of the new moms in our congregation better. Joshua was hungry when we got there, and he (mostly) patiently waited while I got Nathan
The Ugly Lamp
You may not know this, but babies have very poor sight at birth. Typically, they can only clearly see objects closer than about eight to fifteen inches away. They can’t yet see colors and can only see contrasts. That’s why newborns are so engaged by black and white images like checkerboards. Over the next month or so, they develop the ability to track or follow items as they move across their range of vision. By about four months of age, babies can start differentiating colors. My senior year of college, I purchased two floor lamps at Wal-Mart. Even then, I knew they were fairly ugly things – plain black lamps with some sweet shiny brass/gold accents. On my student’s budget though, I couldn’t afford anything nicer, and since they are functional and paid for, they’ve been following me around through the six moves I’ve had in the ten years since
