Baby Bug and I had a big day today. Of course my day started at 3am but her’s really got into gear around 9am when she had her first bath at the kitchen sink. She didn’t like it too much. I only sponge bathed her and didn’t even use soap but she still thought it was way too much. (The soap in the picture is just for aesthetics, I didn’t end up using it.) Sensitive skin runs on both sides of the family so I’m not taking any chances. Then she ate and slept and ate and slept and ate and slept some more. It’s hard work eating and sleeping all the time.

The big news of the day is that we went out today. Scary! Scary! It was only yesterday that I was thinking that going to the mail box was too far. Today we went to the hospital for a breast feeding clinic so I could take up the matter of my um… raw and bleeding hamburger like nipples with a lactation consultant. My friend Kate picked me up because I’m still way too scared to drive. Baby Bug looked like a midget next to her eight month old son in the car seat next to her. Wow, eight month olds are HUMUNGOUS!!! He didn’t like her too much and cried the whole ride. I think he was teething. Baby Bug didn’t seem to mind the crying a bit. She slept the whole way.

Baby Bug loved the clinic. She ate two whole ounces and didn’t chew me up a bit. The nurses had to show her around the whole office exclaiming how cute her cheeks were. The nurse who was helping me also informed me that Baby Bug has a strong will. I didn’t think you could tell at this young age but apparently when you see babies every day all day long, you can. And apparently, Baby Bug knows what she wants and she wants it now. Phew! What am I in for? But the same nurse also told me that a strong will can be a sign of intelligence so I’m going to try and focus on that and not on her stubbornness.

How could the nurse tell this from a quick 1 hour meeting? Well, Baby Bug likes to flail her arms about when she’s attempting to latch on and she ends up beating me up like a boxer so hard that she can’t get her mouth where it is supposed to go. I actually have to bind her arms back with a burp rag to make any progress. By then she’s so mad and red in the face, she’s broken capillaries in her cheeks. But thankfully the redness clears up pretty quick and she manages to keep her perfect skin that everyone is always raving about. She was supposed to have jaundice by now (since they had to suction cup her head pretty hard and that can cause pretty bad jaundice) but she looks like she’s going to beat it. Yay for good skin!

I had to call Toby to tell him he has a strong willed child. He was proud. She takes after him, I guess. Though my mom tells me I was a difficult nurser as well.

So that was our big day with scary baths and being out in the big outside world where there are germs and car wrecks to get into.

And we lived to tell about it!

It’s three in the morning. My husband is asleep. My baby is asleep. My cats are asleep. I, however, am wide awake and I feel like a truck ran over me. What is wrong with this picture? Since I’ve never been one to fight insomnia, I’m going to roll with it and bang out a blog post. Even if it is the most random piece of writing I ever put together.

I’m sitting in the baby’s room typing (finally with two hands!) waiting for her to wake up for her three am feeding. She’s a sleeping late. Soon I’ll have to wake her up because apparently she has a stomach the size of a walnut. You’d never guess that though. She eats like she has a bottomless pit. But thankfully she eats! I felt like such a failure when my milk was two days late coming in and I thought I was starving her. Yesterday, when she finally had her first poopy diaper, I was ready to break out the sparkling cider and have a celebration. The things that make a first time parent ecstatic….

I just am so overwhelmed with things to tell you. I must have had 5000 blog posts go by in the last five days. Before I blogged about every little thing. Now every big thing is going by and I can’t take a second to stop and record it. Life is amazing right now. As my friend Kate emailed me (thank God for email since I can’t for the life of me stay connected by phone right now) “your children are the orgasm of life…” I have never felt so much love at one time before. It’s like a giant gush.

I was watching Law and Order (while I ate lasagna on autopilot not tasting a bite of it but knowing I need to eat or I might faint and fall over dead) and suddenly I was overwhelmed by fear that something might happen to my little girl. I should not watch television shows about children getting abducted by that “p” word (a noun, as in a person who is very very very bad to children) that I’m not even going to type because I can’t stand google finding me and bringing me that kind of traffic. I suddenly started shaking and crying buckets of tears. I seriously believe that if something happened to my little bug, I would rather be dead than go on living. I know I should not think such morbid thoughts but I cannot bear anything ever happening to such a precious life.

She is so perfect you can’t even believe it. I always wanted a baby but I never expected this. She is more than I could have ever dreamed up. I used to want to go to the baby store and just buy a baby (wouldn’t that be so much easier than four years of trying trying trying, I thought?) but now I’m so glad I waited. I could never have picked out a more wonderful baby for myself. She mystifies me.

Before I turn this post into another crying jag, I just want to say thank you internet. Wow. When I got home and read all my comments (when I was still awake and running on adrenaline, as opposed to right now when I am actually asleep while I am awake) I had to fight back tears (a theme with me these days). So many people had so many good wishes. You really know how to make a girl feel like a rock star. I almost fear the day that somebody forms a backlash “I hate SAJ” club. I just never realized so many people had been going through this journey with me. I just want to say thank you. Thank you for everything.

Hopefully soon I’ll get better at updating (with pictures for the relatives)!!!! I know you all are disappointed to click over today for a picture of a dumb clock. But seriously, I have not even had a minute to find my camera and take pictures of her cuteness when it is daylight and I don’t have to blast her with the stupid auto-flash. But don’t worry, Toby is taking pictures like they’re going out of style. His work is suffering because all he does all day is take pictures of her. Just like everyone predicted, he is completely in love.