Baby’s first 168 hours

My little guy celebrated his 1-week birthday at 5 a.m. this morning. I was up to observe the occasion, though he was not. He had not eaten particularly well at his 3:30 a.m. feeding, which resulted in such engorgement that I celebrated with my pump.

That feeding aside, he is doing incredibly well. I have thought, a great many times this week, that based on all my past babies I should still be pregnant right now, and would be so for another week or two! It is strange to think that a week ago my experience of this child was kicks to the ribs. Now I’m getting to know the intense little boy who was contained in my round belly. He becomes more alert all the time. When we went to the pediatrician on Thursday for another weight check, he was back past his hospital discharge weight. I’m pretty sure he’s gone up a lot since then as I can see his little face filling out. He is really taking in the world, studying such sounds as the vacuum cleaner and the wind chimes.

It’s not been an easy week, of course. I haven’t slept much. My own recovery seems slow. I imagine that’s partly my “advanced maternal age” and (possibly moreso) the nasty cold I contracted in the hospital. But I’m trying to soak in this sweet little guy’s face, and this time that I know is passing quickly. I am managing to feel nostalgic for now, even as I am in it! I’m trying to write down all my memories of this holiday break. I’m grateful for my time logs, which are helping to cement memories I know will fade. I am trying to step outside the bustle for a minute to see and savor this time.

Because of course, life continues. The mundane: adding money to my eldest’s lunch account. Signing kids up for camp (to get the early bird discount, naturally. I have now created our 2020 Summer Camp spreadsheet). My husband has been dealing with the older kids, mostly. Today he took all four of them skiing, which has made the house mercifully quiet, but was also chaotic as we got four children into their long underwear and snow pants and made sure that they left with four sets of gloves, helmets, etc.

And then there was yesterday’s adventure. Longtime readers know I was concerned about kid #5 potentially sharing a birthday with kid #4 (in mid-January). Thanks to the early arrival, their birthdays are now actually farther apart than kid #2 and kid #3, so while it will be birthday season, they won’t be aiming for the same weekend for parties. But anyway — in early December, I had spent a reasonable amount of time trying to figure out when to do my soon-to-be 5-year-old’s birthday party. I elected to schedule that for this past Saturday, figuring that would be before the baby’s arrival. Then it wasn’t. So the seven of us, my mother-in-law, and our new Saturday sitter headed over to Chuck E. Cheese yesterday. We had enough adults that the baby could stay in the van with supervision, and thus avoid the unique microbial environment of everyone’s favorite kid casino. My preschooler had a great time celebrating with his friends and…I survived.

I’m sure the next 168 hours will bring more changes. In the meantime, I’m glad the little guy gave me a chance to type up these memories while he’s asleep on my lap!

In other news: Interested in tracking your time? Sign up for the 2020 Time Tracking Challenge and get daily emails from me to guide the process! The challenge starts every Monday, and you’ll get your first email on Sunday. You can do any week you’d like, but this next one (Jan 6-12) is a good one. About 400 people have signed up to track this week — why not figure out where the time really goes?