The high temperature tomorrow is supposed to be 90 degrees. Ugh! It has been really warm this September, which I shall have to remember to prepare myself for next year. This year June was very cool and September was very warm-- interesting. Even I will admit that Utah has lovely, lovely summers but I am totally over it now. This is exacerbated by the fact that I am nearly always carrying around or nursing or otherwise in physical contact with a little warm baby. I don't really desire to get space away from the little warm baby but gosh, I am ready to not be so sweaty all the time. Maybe it is partly hormonal as well? Bring on autumn!
Lewis is 4 weeks old now and doing quite well, full of sweet baby snuggles and a zillion poops a day, in stark contrast with Violet who at about a month old pooped every 4 days or something like that. Seriously, it is not uncommon for me to change his diaper 3 times in an hour when he is awake, and we have had diaper changes that have involved up to 4 diapers as he poops again immediately as I snap him up. Or as he squirts bright yellow breastmilk poop several feet out his butt while his diaper is off, which is a less desirable option. It is a toss-up which is worse-- that, or being peed upon, boy-baby-fashion. I am glad we're using cloth diapers because otherwise we would have spent a fortune on diapers by this point. Also, all this pooping is finally motivating me to switch to cloth wipes as well. Yes, I know, I know-- I've been cloth-diapering for going on six years now and have never used cloth wipes. I know everyone says you might as well do the cloth wipes if you are using cloth diapers already but for some reason it has seemed too hard until right now. Right now, when I am displeased by how many disposable wipes we are going through in a week.
And me? I am tired. Weary. Knackered, even. It befits the mother of a newborn, I suppose, but is not very fun. I have that eye twitch that I get whenever I am low on sleep. I feel like I spend a huge portion of my day walking and moving around and bouncing, because GOODNESS Lewis likes movement, as almost all babies do, I suppose. I am sort of considering buying a baby swing but am full of ambivalence about it. We borrowed a swing from friends with Grace and she liked it for, oh, two weeks or so, after which it made her cry and cry and cry. We didn't have one with Violet. I'm kind of a minimalist when it comes to baby stuff and also am snobbily horrified by the way most baby gear looks so I don't really want one at some level. At another level, I am lured by the siren promises of being able to put my baby down without him wailing. I want to throw money at the issue, thinking "Surely if I just buy the right thing everything will be fixed?!" If I did buy a swing, I know which one I would get: BEHOLD! A non-horrifying swing! There's a handful of them for sale used around town for about half that price. But would I be spending a hundred bucks for less than a month of use? Or worse than that, even? All of the listings for the used ones are all about how it's been used only 3 times and their baby didn't like it, etc.
I am taking a nap or at least resting most days, which is helping with the coping and the sanity and all. Most days after I pick Grace up from kindergarten and we eat lunch, I let the girls watch TV and curl up with Lewis for a nap. Ah, TV, what a wonderful/horrible crutch you are... Speaking of kindergarten, Grace is having a very good time, making new friends and navigating her new social world well. We've only had one school-related melt-down so far; it was the first day the teacher had them write in their journals and Grace was frustrated because she couldn't write EVERYTHING she had in her brain to express. She wanted to learn how to write the entire English language on her first try. I think she has since come to terms with the incremental nature of learning, to some extent at least, and kindergarten is going swimmingly. I am amazed with the strides she's made in reading in just four weeks there. She is doing so much better sounding out words and is much more willing to try and work hard to decode words. It's liked a trained educator knows what she's doing when it comes to teaching reading or something! Or it could simply be investing time on it every single day, which I admit I have never been good at here at home. That is true in almost every area of my life, actually; I have a hard time maintaining the discipline to do something non-urgent every single day. I can cook and do laundry every day but I have always struggled to be consistent at daily exercise or Bible reading or sticking with an eating plan or the like. Discipline is hard.
4 comments:
Well, if you get the swing you can always, um, sell it afterwards. So you wouldn't be spending the whole $100 on it. In fact, you may be able to sell it again for another $100 and come out even. SLC should be a GREAT place to sell baby things, right?
I started putting Leah on that red chair that showed up on every photo at abut a month old. Have you tried something like that?. The price will be similar to the swing, but it will last a lot longer. Most of those chairs you have to move yourself, but once they get used to it, they can sit there for a fair amount of time (in baby units, of course). They can even nap there while they are still small.
I did cloth wipes a little. We just bought a bunch of cheap but soft wash cloths and used water. I kept purchased wipes for the really dirty jobs when one wash cloth was not enough. Then with C I made my wipes. Sooooo easy - boil a cup of water with some baby oil and baby soap (maybe 1-2 Tb each) to dissolve and pour over a roll of paper towels that has been cut in half. I kept it in a tupperware type container to keep moist.
Interesting. I picture you as woman of much discipline. Funny the illusions you get going, eh? OR maybe it's not an illusion and the truth is that compared to me you ARE disciplined! Hah! :P
Cloth wipes sound good. I had a minor experimental stage. We have a baby swing that folds up so that the moment it clearly isn't being useful anymore it can whisked away. Although, honestly, so far...none of my kids have been wild fans. I use a baby bouncer much more. And mine is old school so I just bounce it with my foot while I fold laundry or type or peel peaches or read story books or whatever it is that I want my hands free for. I wish ours wasn't ugly though.
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