2 1/2 Weeks Into Parenthood

Now that Guinevere is here, I am discovering just how exhausting being a new mommy is!  I apologize in advance for any tangents, typos, and spelling/grammar mistakes I may make over the next couple weeks/months.  Sleep deprivation is a dangerous thing . . . especially when writing something that will be available to the world at large.  I will admit, finding the hour or so that it takes to write a blog entry has been fairly difficult over the past 2 ½ weeks.  I knew this whole experience would be time consuming and exhausting, but somehow until you are living it, it doesn’t quite register just how time consuming and exhausting it really is!  My hat goes off to all the single moms out there in the world because there is no way I could get through this without Aaron’s support and all the help we’ve received from friends and family.

Newborns are supposed to eat every 2-3 hours (i.e. 8-12 times a day).  My little one seems to want to eat every 2 hours in the morning, every hour in the afternoon/evening, and then she gives us a slight break and will sleep for a good 3 hours from midnight to 3am.  I can handle the every 2 hours because it gives me a chance to hand her off to Aaron and go to the bathroom or eat something (when she does go 3 hours between feedings, it’s a godsend to have that extra hour!).  But when she wants to eat every hour, it is super exhausting!  I never anticipated breast-feeding would be so draining!  But seriously, when she wants to eat every hour, it means I only have 15 minutes to recover between feedings!

Over the past week, it seemed like she was settling into a nice routine of every 2-3 hours during the day and even stretching to 4 hours at night sometimes, but then yesterday, starting around 3am, she suddenly decided she wanted to be awake at that ridiculous hour AND wanted to eat every 1-2 hours for the next 24 hours.  This morning she decided 4am was her wake up time, which for some reason is a bit more acceptable than 3am, but still not ideal.  Someday she’ll sleep until 6am again . . . right?

So angelic when she finally does fall asleep.

 

Ok, enough whining . . . here is what has been happening around our house for the past 2 ½ weeks:  We came home from the hospital on Sunday, July 1.  Aaron’s mom came up to help us for the first week.  My parents were here the weekend Guinevere was born, and then came up again on the 4^th of July.  It was a vastly different 4^th of July than normal, but we tried to bring as much tradition to it as possible.  We normally go to the Teen Center in Mira Mesa for the pancake breakfast, so my dad made pancakes for us to eat here at the house.  Guinevere was very good for us!  She slept through the entire breakfast and literally started crying that she was hungry right as I was taking my last bite!  (I love it when she times things perfectly like that.) We spent the rest of the day hanging out at my house.  My parents and I took a short walk around the block while Aaron took a nap.  I watched the Twilight Zone marathon while I fed her.  When my parents left that night, we had the traditional uneaten watermelon left in the fridge.

Cute little family on the 4th of July.

My mom came up to help out the next week, and we had a nice “changing of the grandmas.”  I’m so glad that my family and Aaron’s family get along so well!  Guinevere lost her umbilical cord stump in the middle of the night my mom’s first night here. 

We have already been thoroughly covered in spit up, pee and poo.  And omg – we have gone through so many diapers!!!!  I have a lot of friends who’ve had babies that outgrew the newborn size diapers before they used all the ones they acquired prior to birth.  Guinevere is still so small that I think we’re going to need to purchase more newborn size diapers before we move on to the bigger sizes that we have.  Speaking of her size, I realize now that most of the adorable clothes she was given are the 0-3month size, which are still too big for her.  We have plenty of newborn size clothes; they are just more functional than cute.  At least I can look forward to dressing her in the cute stuff as she gets bigger.  It kind of gives me something positive to keep in mind as she’s demanding to be fed for the 3^rd hour in a row. 

In the meantime, here are some pics of her in some of the cute newborn size clothes she does have. 

Guinevere at 1 week.

Guinevere at 2 weeks.

Oh, and some of you have asked about nicknames.  We are testing out Ginny and Gwen (or Gwenny while she’s still a baby) – either of those are fine.  I think the only one that Aaron has vetoed is Gigi (or GG).  He says it sounds like a stripper name.  Around the house, I call her Silly Butt and Aaron calls her Pooper, but no one else is allowed to call her those names.