Feb
7
There are a lot of things I had forgotten about new babies, like how they constantly make a series of weird/adorable noises: tiny grunts, snuffles, balloon-deflatey pbbblllth sounds from their mouths, half-grumbles, delectable fluttery pigeon coos, etc. Also, the turtlish head extensions, the shockingly strong crooked little legs, the frantic piglike snorting during their cries when they get all pissed off about a diaper change.
I forgot how hard it is to change a newborn’s diaper. I get one diaper off and he instantly starts wailing and squirming and pees all over everything within twenty feet. I wrestle on a new diaper, trying to avoid the terrifying umbilical stump, peel off his wet clothes and blankets, and thread his noodley arms through a fresh outfit — all while he’s doing that panicky full-body crying — then I re-wrap him, toss his wet stuff into the laundry basket, and then it’s time for him to eat because he’s depleted all of his energy resources freaking the hell out about the DIAPER. Two seconds into the feeding, his butt goes blrrrrrrt and it’s time to do the whole cycle again. In the meantime, the baby has now spit up on fifteen clean blankets.
That’s what’s so exhausting about newborns, really. It’s the lather, rinse, repeat cycle of eating/pooping. There are these wonderful periods of sleeping in between, but hell, now there’s laundry to do. Which I would ignore in favor of joining Dylan in a tandem snorefest, except there’s this whole second kid dynamic this time, and I am frankly wondering why I thought it was so hard to have ONE baby, back when Riley was first born.
Except, I do know why it was so hard, and why it’s actually much easier this time. The first time around, we had no idea what we were doing. We were scared, stressed out, and filled with the sort of brain-bending paranoia that makes otherwise normal people fashion tin foil hats and mutter darkly about alien transmissions. Everything that went in or came out of Riley’s body was painstakingly documented in an Excel spreadsheet, because god only knew what would happen if we didn’t know to the milliliter how much he had eaten between 2 and 4 PM.
We’re much more relaxed with Dylan. Everything is coming back, in that cliched bike-riding sort of way, from how to get a really good swaddle to the best burping method. We aren’t constantly afraid that we’re going to break him, which is much less stressful. Although maybe I should worry about this a little, since I’ve found myself casually moseying through doorways with Dylan slung out to one side, nearly cracking his tiny, still-smooshy head into the wall.
Things are easier, even if they are also harder in some ways. Riley is doing very well with his new baby brudda, much better than I had expected, but he needs extra attention. He’s super rambunctious and chattering nonstop, all in an apparent effort to display his many fine talents and positive qualities, and he is such an awesome, awesome kid but it is all a little tiring. I am blown away, though, by his ability to be sweet to Dylan, and his desire to be helpful by informing me whenever Dylan’s hat has fallen off. He even kissed his brother’s head earlier today, at which point I died. I just, you know, DIED, because does life get any better than that? Seeing my two beautiful boys together, neither one of them attempting to kill the other?
Coming up soon: Dylan’s birth story, which is refreshingly drama-free but chock full of thrilling surgery details which I know you are on the edge of your seat to hear. Or maybe not, but too bad, I want to share it ALL. In the meantime — more pictures, OF COURSE:
Feb
6
You guys, thank you so so so much for all your wonderful comments over the last few days. I’ve been wanting to update but we’ve been stuck in the hospital forever — seriously, they would not let us go until late this afternoon, despite everyone’s robust and gaseous good health, we started thinking we were going to have to jailbreak our way out a window or something — and now of course we have some major not-sleeping to do, as well as overcompensating with Riley for this horrifying new arrangement (“Hey Riley, let’s go buy you a MOTORCYCLE! Unless you’d rather have your very own HOOKER?”).
More actual blog content to come soon. Until then, some squishy newborn photos:
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