Five weeks.
Little Man is officially a month old and it feels both longer than that and yet like I couldn’t possibly have been in charge of this tiny human for a month already.
I spent a majority of my day for the first four weeks, stuck in one spot with this guy laying on my chest. I won’t lie, it’s a very bitter sweet feeling. On the one hand I’m filled with so much love for this tiny tiny person. Knowing that no matter how upset he is all I have to do is pick him up and lay him against me and he suddenly calms down. He nestles in and goes to sleep and he’s just so happy and content.
That right there is a feeling that I’ll never get sick of.
On the other hand…I rarely have two free hands.
If I need to get up for a period of time longer than it takes to go to the toilet or get a bottle of milk ready, there is a 90% chance that he will realise he is not being held and start crying within thirty seconds. Now if I’m coming straight back then, cool, he can wait the other thirty seconds.
But if I need to do something that takes a bit more time, the crying of my newborn child becomes mildly…distressing.
Women are unfortunately biologically engineered to become distressed or uncomfortable when hearing their child crying. It’s even worse when they’re already touched out and exhausted and all they want is to be able to eat their first fresh, hot meal for days.
The number of times over the last few weeks when Predator was sleeping soundly, then Matt and I sit down to a nice hot meal, nothing complicated but fancy enough to require a knife as well as a fork. The use of both of these utensils is severely hindered by holding a small child.
One night in particular Matt had cooked us up some steaks and I was just digging into mine when Predator started screaming. It had been such a day and I was so tired that the last thing I needed was more crying. So I picked him up.
I was then stuck with one hand and an uncut steak which resulted in me silently crying.
Matt sees that I’m crying, takes the child and puts him in his cot. So now my hands are free again, but he’s also screaming again which just sets me off again. Matt heats up a bottle while I go and grab the child again because the house is not big enough and does not have enough doors to close to be able to drown out crying baby.
I yeet the baby to Matt while the bottle is warming so I can take a minute and cut my steak up, at least then I can eat with one hand right?
Wrong!
Despite the fact that I’m a mess I still have more patience for the child than Matt does. I’m also more adept at feeding him in my arms than Matt is. So now I’m being fork fed as I try and get the child into a position that doesn’t result in him dribbling half of the bottle down his damn chin. I’m not wholly fazed when he dribbles the formula but I’m a bit particular about the breast milk. That shit takes a lot more effort to make.
The other day I was finally able to sort out the pantry. Dad had finished building the shelves the day before and Matt brought all the boxes of food in from the garage. Now was my time to shine.
Unfortunately, Predator did not agree with my having an hour or two to myself. Mum suggested bringing the baby bouncer out into the kitchen so he could be there while I worked, however he’s not new to that trick. This kid is smart. And manipulative.
You see, if Matt puts him down in the cot or in the bouncer, he’s pretty content. He might fuss for a bit but he settles down fairly quickly. As far as he’s concerned mum isn’t around right now.
You know what happens if I do any of those things?
He yells at me. He yells and cries and demands to be held and as I mentioned before, the moment I do that, he calms right on down.
It should make me really happy that I can make my Little Man feel so safe and happy that he shuts up instantly.
Don’t get me wrong, it does for the most part.
I’m still really limited in where I can go at the moment, I still can’t drive for another week. I can walk down to the shops that are ten minutes away but that’s it. So I’m over here waiting for either a friendly chauffer or a baby sitter. And I am the baby.
I have found the most effective way to silence the child and be able to get things done when I’m home alone is putting him in the baby carrier. Out of desperation I tried it when I was working on the pantry. It definitely slowed me down a bit and I was having to make sure I didn’t accidentally bang him against something but at least I had two free hands and no screaming baby.
Honestly I don’t even remember where I started this post off or what my original point was. What I do know is that my incision is hurty, I have a baby strapped to my body so I can go about my day without him screaming at me and all I wanna do is devour sugar in various forms while drinking all the V energy drinks. I also wanna nap.
You see where I’m stuck, yeah?
S.J Smith Books 