”
Each day is beginning to feel a little bit like Groundhog
Day,
”
I told my husband, Chris, earlier this week.
I hate to say it, but it’s true. Each day is reminiscent of the
one before.
“Each day is beginning to feel a little bit like Groundhog Day,” I told my husband, Chris, earlier this week.
I hate to say it, but it’s true. Each day is reminiscent of the one before.
Before giving birth, I imagined life with our newborn daughter, Emma, would consist of picnics in the park, leisurely strolls around our neighborhood and shopping for new clothes for her Mom.
But recovering from childbirth and 25 extra “baby” pounds aren’t conducive to such elaborate outings. Instead, we’ve been carving out our days into three-hour increments of eating, pooping and sleeping. This translates into me feeding her, changing her and then convincing her for an hour that she really does want to sleep so Mom can have two hours of precious shut-eye. Eight of those cycles equal one Groundhog Day that seeps into the next.
A certain amount of monotony is just one of the unexpected things about parenthood that I’ve encountered. The last 17 days have presented more surprises about our daughter and myself than I could have ever imagined.
Take my new compulsion to add a “y” to the end of nearly every word. As in diapey. Or burpy. Or nappy. As in: “Do you have a burpy for Mommy?” I coo to our days-old daughter. “If you do, we’ll change your diapey and put you down for a nappy.” What is that about? Chris at first didn’t believe me when I owned up to it, but after I demonstrated he looked a little somber. I don’t blame him. What’s next? Will I start cutting up my husband’s meat and cooing to our dog, Lucy?
Emma and I also have mysteriously contracted narcolepsy. One moment we are fully awake and coherent, and, the next, we’re gone. There’s no sense in trying to rouse us. Believe me, Chris has tried. But we’re off somewhere in dreamland, and we’re not coming back until we decide we’re good and ready. The funny part is Emma always wakes up before I do. Then you can bet I snap to attention.
I haven’t yet figured out what all of her different cries mean. All the books say around week two or three you’ll be able to distinguish one cry from the next. I’m not sure if I buy that. All of her wails sound the same to me: pathetic. When she starts howling, I scoop her up and try one of three obvious things. If that doesn’t work, we go straight for the rocking chair.
Of course, these days babies have every single gadget imaginable to calm them. Emma has a vibrating chair. Imagine that? We strapped her in it the other night just to see her reaction. She immediately stopped crying, put her fist in her mouth, and got this dreamy, far-off expression on her face. Her swing rules, too. It never fails to soothe her. Then there’s her Boppy. This is a fairly new invention. It’s a U-shaped pillow that you place around your waist while nursing. It also works as a seat for Emma in a pinch, too. What did our mothers ever do without these contraptions?
“I held you,” my mom told me the other day. I do plenty of that, too. A few nights ago, Emma and I sat nose to nose and stared into the other’s eyes. I wanted to close mine, but I held them open. I don’t want to miss a single second of this precious stage of her life.
Already, people have told us that she looks different from one day to the next. I don’t see it, but earlier this week, the passage of time hit me over the head. Her umbilical cord stump fell off. I was nearly moved to tears.
Our little girl’s growing up. In a few weeks, she’ll be a month-old and no longer a newborn.
In between the diaper changes, nursing and laundry, I’m carving out my own moments: holding Emma close over my shoulder, patting her back while feeling the heft of her curled up body; watching her face explode into a smile, her eyes and mouth crinkling up at the corners; feeling her tiny fingers close over one of mine as she eats.
If this is my Groundhog Day, I’ll gladly relive it over and over.
