...of my first full day

"What can I do to make Mom's first day really hard... Hmmm..."

Abram was born on November 17th, 2010. It is now January 2nd, 2011 (that's very strange to type). 46 days later and I have yet to spend a full one completely by myself with him. I have been so blessed... and spoiled. I was talking to a friend before Abram was born, telling her how much time Quinn's work was giving him off for the baby. Her response was: "Wow. I think Ryan got that Friday off".

Not only has my husband been around, but he's been an incredible help. I have heard stories of men who never changed their child's diaper. Well, Quinn's got that one down. Actually, that is probably where he will be missed the most. Everytime I am feeding Abram and he falls asleep half way through, I call for Quinn. I mean, it's really hard to hoist yourself out of a chair with a sleeping baby and breastfeeding pillow strapped around your waist. But, alas, I must learn to do it and my only hope is that I might be working my butt muscles... but probably not.

The last 3-4 days have been filled with crying. A lot of crying. I have heard that "fussiness" peaks at 6 weeks. I'm not sure where the line is between fussiness and colic, but Abram may have crossed it. I mean, this kid spends 50% of his time sleeping, 20% eating, 25% crying, and 5% awake and content.

This happened in the span of about 10 minutes.

I don't know if this is normal. And his crying is, like, for real crying: screaming, reddness, tears, back of the throat kind of crying. The only thing that stops it is 1. eating (and sometimes he will even do it then) and 2. the Moby wrap. This is not a very good picture (of the Moby or myself), but hopefully you get the idea.
It's an absurdly long piece of a stretch cotton fabric that, when wrapped a certain way around you and your baby, creates the closest thing I've felt to being pregnant since being pregnant. This is mildly uncomfortable, but ultimately wonderful, as it puts the baby to sleep and frees up both of your hands. Thank you to my friend, Channing, for recommending it. Quinn still prefers the Baby Bjorn, but I think the Moby is much for comfortable for me and Abram. So, I'm sure he will be living in that thing quite a bit in the days and weeks to come. Oh, and the guitar is like a magic wand, too. Play three songs when that kid is tired and crying and he'll be out by the end. We had to pull it out on Christmas so that the rest of us could enjoy ourselves.

The last 46 days have been filled with holidays and visitors and food. We spent Christmas Day with my parents, grandparents, sister, and brother-in-law. Quinn finally bought me a Wii. There is a funny story about him buying me a Wii two Christmases ago and then returning it before he gave it to me, and then telling me that he bought it, getting me excited, and then telling me he returned it, but I won't go into all that detail... he had his reasons... kind of... Anyway, I finally talked him into it this year and he brought it down to my sister's house so that we could hook it up and show the game to everyone. We did that and it was a bit too overwhelming for my parents and grandparents to play. So we Wii bowled instead. All of us. Even my almost 80 year old grandparents. Proof that the Wii really is "fun for the whole family". My mom's form was definitely the best. Look at that follow through! :)

We also got some family photos before everyone left:

The parents
The grandparents
The great-grandparents

He actually has a Great-Great Grandmother who is still alive in her 100th year in Poteau, OK. We would love to get up there in the next few months and get a picture with her. It would be amazing.

As far as the food goes, we have also been blessed by many friends bringing us things that we had as leftovers and Thanksgiving and Christmas and more leftovers. So I really haven't had to flex my cooking muscles at all over the last 6 weeks. So I thought I would give it a try last night. I got halfway through the preparation of a chicken pot pie with stuffing crust, when Abram woke up and wanted to be fed. So everything sat there for 45 minutes while he ate until I could get back to it. Luckily this recipe was condusive to long, unexpected nursing breaks.
Most recipes will not be. I am worried about this as I think about my new career as a stay at home mom who takes care of the baby and prepares lovely meals for the dad to come home to everyday. We'll see how lovely they really end up being.

Well, I should stop now. Everyone else is in bed preparing for the reintroduction to "normal" life tomorrow and I am sitting here typing about being worried about the reintroduction to "normal" life. I should be sleeping, I have no idea when this baby is going to wake up and want to be fed. Oh, Abram, go easy on me buddy, I'm a little frightened.

"We shall see, Mom, we shall see..."