Firsts

These past few weeks have been busy! I meant to write an update after Nathan's one month check-up (weight gain - finally!)... And yet here we are, just a week away from his two month appointment. To be fair, we've had a number of visitors. Neighbors and friends have come by about once or twice a week. My grandfather (Papa) came up for a day in early February. The following weekend, one of my uncles brought my Grandma up for a couple days (a HUGE deal since she pretty much never leaves her farm). The weekend after that my brother came to meet his nephew for the first time. And the weekend after that my Aunt K (and her husband and son) came down for the day to visit.

In the midst of all the visitors, Nathan had his one month check-up and I had my six week postpartum check-up. Nathan weighed in at 8 pounds and had grown a whole 2 inches longer already (which we kind of suspected because he's been growing out of newborn stuff lengthwise). He's only in the 10th percentile or so for weight, but he's in the 70th for length! He also got his second hep B vaccine. He did great - barely a whimper! I won't say what I weighed in at, but suffice it to say I have about 10 pounds more to lose to be at my pre-pregnancy weight. And probably another 10-15 to be back at my pre-fertility treatments weight... The rest of my check-up was uneventful - everything is healed and I got the "all clear" to return to regular activity levels, etc. Both of our appointments were in the city, so we swung by my office afterwards each time. Nathan met several of my co-workers and was sufficiently oohed and ahhhed over :)

Aside from the doctor's appointments and the visits from family and friends, we've had a few "firsts" that I wanted to write about:

First solo trip to the store with a baby
This was a big deal for me. I was terrified by the thought of taking Nathan to the store by myself. Paul and I had done it several times together and it was totally fine. But we were a team. One of us would tend to the baby while the other did the shopping. And for his part, Nathan was usually content to nap in his carseat in the cart. In the rare event that he started to wake up and get fussy, Paul was there to swing the seat a bit and lull him back to sleep. Easy! Shopping solo, however, made me nervous. What if he cried? Not like, fussed a little, but full-on screamed bloody murder? What if he decided he was hungry and/or had a massive blowout diaper when I had a cart full of stuff? What if I cried? What if people stared at me? I was fully aware that these were all irrational and/or overblown fears, and yet I managed to come up with every excuse in the book to put off doing it by myself for as long as possible.

And then one day, I decided it was time to confront the fear. We needed a few groceries and toiletries - not a long list but more than just one or two items. So I packed Nathan up in his carseat, loaded him into the truck (Paul has been taking my car to work lately to save on gas), and drove to Walmart. I figured Walmart was a good place to start. If we had a major meltdown mid-store, I'd be just one more parent in a sea of parents with unhappy and/or misbehaving children. I did drive the long way over and took a detour through the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru in the hopes that he might fall asleep and stay asleep for the duration of our trip. And he did sleep for most of it - up until the last 15 minutes or so. We were in the meat section, heading towards produce, when he started to fuss a little. Deep breaths, no big deal. I lifted the blanket, re-inserted the pacifier that he'd lost, and kept moving. I paused to pick out bananas and there was more fussing from under the blanket. I repeated the pacifier move, tossed the bananas in the cart (the last item on my list), and headed to the check-out. So far so good...

I picked what I thought was the shortest/fastest line (there was only one person ahead of me!) and proceeded to unload my cart onto the belt whilst gently rolling the cart back and forth a few inches. Talk about skill! And then things started to go downhill. The guy ahead of me insisted on swiping a card that, for whatever reason, was not working. After 5-6 tries, the cashier asked him if he had another card to use (he did not) so he decided to do the thing where you give them a blank check and the register fills it out for you. Except his account information was not in the system (even though he told her his wife "does this all the time"). Long story short - it took him forever to check out. And by the time I realized this, I was trapped. There were people in line behind me, my stuff was all laid out on the belt, and Nathan was becoming increasingly displeased by the whole situation. I felt my panic level rising a bit and even considered grabbing the carseat and bolting. But I knew that if I did, it would only multiply my fear for the next time. I needed to stay to prove to myself that I could handle it, that it was not the end of the world if he cried in the checkout line, and that the people in line behind me were not going to make rude comments and/or report me to DCFS for being a bad parent (ridiculous things to worry about, I know, but they did cross my mind).

And you know what? We survived. Nathan fussed (not terribly loudly) and I comforted him as best I could given the circumstances. The woman behind me gave me a sympathetic smile and asked how old he was. The guy in front of me finally got his stuff together and left. The cashier apologized profusely and rang me up in record time. By that point he was working up to a full scream, but no one glared at us. In fact, no one really seemed to notice. I got myself, the baby, and the groceries out of the store and into the truck. And I breathed a sigh of relief. Was it stressful? Sure. Was it as awful as I was convinced it would be? No. Will I be able to do it again? Yes. Will I someday maybe attempt Target, or even the mall, by myself? Absolutely. In fact, I'm thinking of venturing to the mall tomorrow just for the sake of getting out of the house and having somewhere to walk in the stroller. Overall, it was a scary, but good, first experience. And an important one for me to conquer to feel more confident in my mommy-skills :)

First date night out with the hubby
This was planned a while back, actually. For Christmas, Paul had gotten me tickets to the I Love Lucy musical show that was playing in a theater in the city. The show was ending the first weekend in March, so we had to go before then. We planned it for the last Thursday in February. Gramma (my MIL) was lined up to babysit. She was pretty excited about it :) She arrived mid-afternoon and we gave her the rundown on supplies, activities, schedule, etc. We left around 4:00 p.m. to allow time during rush hour to get to our 5:30 dinner reservation. Dinner was great, the show was lots of fun, and the evening as a whole was a success! We had gone out to eat a few times before and taken Nathan with us, but it was really nice to go out just as a couple. I did miss the little guy, but not in a distracting way. And knowing how excited my MIL had been to babysit made it better. We got home late (around 10:30) and he was in bed, but just barely. And then he woke up about 20 minutes after Gramma left and proceeded to have a bit of a rough night. I don't think she did anything wrong and it was probably just a fluke. But part of me likes to think that he missed us and kept waking up to make sure we were still there :)

First road trip as a family
We took Nathan down to meet the rest of my extended family and friends last week. Paul had a couple of shifts off, so we left Wednesday and came home yesterday (Monday). It's the farthest he has been from home so far (about a 4 hour drive) and the trip was a bit of a dress rehearsal for when we go to Virginia next month. Paul was on shift the day before we left, and Nathan was refusing to nap for very long that day, so I wasn't able to do any packing/organizing ahead of time. It took a ridiculous amount of time to get packed! Besides figuring out what and how to pack for an infant, I had a hard time packing for myself. I don't really need maternity clothes anymore, but I'm not 100% back in my regular clothes either. And on top of that, I'm still figuring out which tops will work for nursing or pumping and which ones won't. As a result, it was mid-afternoon on Wednesday before we finally got on the road.

We stayed at my Papa's house for most of the trip. We set up the pack 'n play in the guest room with us and it worked out really well! I'm glad we got the one we did. It's a little bulkier than some, and might require a little more effort to set up and take down. But the storage pockets helped keep everything organized and he really likes the attached mobile. He slept really well the whole trip (8 hours one night!) so that was nice. We kept pretty busy while we were there. It would take forever to recount all the stories (and I really want to take a shower before he wakes up from his nap!) but the highlight by far was that my mom surprised us while we were there. My Papa had been visiting my parents the week before, and at the last minute my mom decided to drive back with him. She was staying on the farm with Grandma, so we didn't see her until Thursday morning when Grandma brought her into town. Everyone who knew had kept it a secret from us, so we were totally surprised when she came walking in the door at Papa's house. It was such a pleasant surprise and she had a really great time seeing her grandson again. Overall, it was a successful first road trip!

Next up:  First time doing the short-term single-mom thing!
Paul went back to work today and is doing a double shift (48 hours). He took an overtime shift, which is not my favorite idea, but we will need the extra money this month since my unpaid leave starts today. He is technically off at 7:00 Friday morning, but has to stay for a training for a few hours. Then Saturday he works an extra shift at the department here in town before going back to his regular shift at work on Sunday. When we realized that would be TWO back-to-back shifts in 5 days (96 out of 120 hours!) we decided that was a bit much (for me, that is). So he is now only working half the Saturday shift (12 hours). Still. That is a whole lot of just me-and-Nathan time. And yes, I am looking forward to the snuggles and play times. But I'm also reeeeaaallllly hoping that he doesn't decide to have a growth spurt this week when there is no one for me to trade off with! Much like the store thing, I need to do this to know that I can. Stay tuned for updates on our mother-and-son week!