Day 2 – 26.7.2017

Wow, I am tired. To all my friends who are parents, I am sorry I never empathized with you enough before as to this kind of tiredness.

My good friend Praveena nailed it when she said that the ol wisdom of “nap when the baby naps” is just bull because it is blardy impossible when there is so.much.to.do! The cleaning up, sterilizing, EATING, (typing these entries) and before you know it..the baby is up! Time passes too quickly when you are a stay at home mum, and at the end of the day, I have just accomplished a quarter of what I set out to do and feel lousy.

Having said that, I know I’m losing the perspective. This time is for me to spend precious moments with my baby and he’ll only be at this age/stage ONCE. So I shouldn’t be counting down the minutes until he sleeps again just so that I can get on with my list of things to clean / organize / throw. I must remind myself to stop and smell the baby (is that poop?) once in awhile!

I seem to also have post-partum nesting. (Nesting - This urge to clean and organize is known as nesting. Nesting during pregnancy is the overwhelming desire to get your home ready for your new baby. ... Nesting is common and is considered to be an instinct to prepare for birth, but not all pregnant women experience the nesting instinct. Source : http://americanpregnancy.org/planning/nesting-during-pregnancy/)

I did zero nesting during pregnancy. Apparently some women get fresh bursts of energy late in pregnancy and just clean like a demon. My third trimester was marked by me feeling heavy and lazy. When I finally stopped working and was preparing for the birth, instead of nesting, my days were spent beating my previous day’s record of how long I can splay out on the couch until The Man returns from work.

Back to my post-partum nesting (the term is coined by Praveena, btw). I suppose it’s to do with being full-time at home now, so I’d feel like the biggest loser if I don’t at least keep things clean and tidy. Also, having a baby comes with SO.MANY.THINGS. If I don’t put in some decent effort, I wouldn’t even be able to find my baby to feed.

Another thing of note for Day 2 was how I sneeze like a buffalo. I don’t know how some ladies have such dainty and elegant sneezes. When I sneeze, I can summon the lake giant from his thousand years hibernation. The Baby was blissfully latched onto one boobeh, asleep from the hypnotizing property of breast milk and I sneezeeed, and poor child got so started that he got unlatched. Sorry baby, mummy will learn to be a gentler buffalo for you okay.

I have also started pumping. To start building up the harrowing freezer stash for when I go back to work. Apparently the going back to work stress will seriously do a number on your milk supply too, so having a stash is uber important to keep feeding the baby with breast milk. I also have a work event that I have to attend this Friday evening, which will be the first time I’ll be away from the baby at all, and I need enough expressed milk for at least 3 feeds for the baby. Otherwise the baby will have to contend with The Man’s manly nipples and scream in frustration when he realizes he’s being conned. (Actually..if everything about a human’s anatomy is meant to have a function..why do men have nipples if they can’t lactate? I am fully aware of the dual purposes of nipples for women – to feed and also to provide a spot of fun for the woman’s partner (or herself)(insert winknudge) – but it doesn’t work that way for men right?

Anyway, finding the time to establish a pumping schedule is difficult, since The Baby doesn’t have any routine yet, but more so because he nurses so frequently, easily up to 15 times a day and sometimes with less than an hour and a half gap between 2 sessions. So if I add in any pumping in between, besides the obvious question of “Is there anything left in there to pump??”, it’d also mean that I’d be sore beyond belief. So I decided to try tandem pumping, ie pump one side as I’m nursing him with the other. It is going okay so far, though it is precarious balancing a baby and a funnel/cup and making sure the poor ol nippy is not getting squished in the funnel by wrong positioning. So I’m having to do it in the room and shutting The Dog out. Being the overly attached dog that he is, he’s been feeling really rejected and emotional because of that. He’s going to dumpster-dive now to let out some steam. Poor doggo.

Since we are talking about animals, The Cat has been very attached to us too. Last night he even slept in the bed with us, which is rare because he usually prefers to keep a dignified distance from The Dog. I suspect it is because we had been away for so long that he was lonely. I also suspect that he resorted to comfort eating during our absence, as he has grown considerably. My furbabies have such emotional baggage.

On an ending note, since this is my diary I will go ahead and indulge in a spot of..self-indulgence. I can’t get enough to staring at my baby when he is fast asleep during nursing. Those chubby cheeks are such perfection. I am filled with wonder as to how creaky ol me (honourable mention to the help I got from The Man) have been able to incubate and produce such a perfect piece of perfection. Have I mentioned about his perfection?