Thursday, March 5, 2009

What they don't tell you

The other day we met some friends at brunch at Foreign Cinema. (Try the burger – it’s great.)

In addition to our little family, there were two other families there. All of us have kids that are under two, so as you can imagine, sometimes the conversation became a little gross. We got to talking about glamorous stuff, such as how the neck of a small baby can start to get stinky because of spit up and sweat and lack of exposure to air. (I know, sorry.) My girlfriend said that stinky neck was not something that any of the baby books mentioned.

I started thinking about all sorts of things the books and friends and family don’t tell you, in addition to the whole stinky neck thing. There are also the things they DO tell you but they’re a little off.  Here are some of the things I've come up with:

1. Everyone said, “Sleep now, while you still can” while I was pregnant. First of all, it’s not like you can put the extra sleep in a bank and use it on days that are particularly exhausting. And, quite frankly, there’s still sleep to be had. Really, the sleeping just comes in small increments. The longest I’ve slept since for one stretch since October 12th is five and a half hours. And that’s really only a handful of times.  Four hours is a long sleep for me now. 
2. I knew that breastfeeding was going to be a commitment, however, I didn’t know the scope of this commitment. You’re tied to breastfeeding every one to three hours in the beginning. And even now, my day is broken up by breastfeeding/pumping times: every four to five hours I’m expressing milk.
3. Nobody told me that I would need to sleep in a bra, with nursing pads. Oh how I long for the day that I don’t need to wear a bra to bed.
4. I didn’t realize that I would miss my husband.
5. I had no idea that grandchildren make grandparents lose their minds. For example, if I tell my dad, “Ollie just pooped,” he laughs like he’s never heard anything funnier.
6.  I worry more now about things I couldn't have ever imagined I would worry about.
7. People said diapers are expensive. The ones we use are $.33 each. (I didn’t do the math-diapers.com tells you this when you buy diapers.)
  

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