Crime of Mommyhood

Thank you for all the support about the neighbor from hell. I especially appreciated the threats. I think we are stuck with him until May, so I'm sure to have more stories about his psychosis to entertain you with.

Meanwhile, I have another venting session planned for this post. Here goes...

Dave and I have a friend that will remain nameless, that also recently had a baby. Throughout her pregnancy, this girl would constantly post outrageous claims that in no way, could be true. For example, she would post that at 12 weeks pregnant, she felt the baby's first kick. For you non-baby people, that is physically impossible. The absolute earliest kicks occur around the 16 week mark, and even that's rare. Lady, those "kicks" you felt were a strong case of gas. Sorry I'm not sorry.

Now that the baby is born, she is pulling the same shit. When her kid was 2 weeks old, she posted a status that enraged me beyond belief. I wish I could quote it on here verbatim, but in the slight chance she might stumble upon this blog, I'll paraphrase. It was something like that her baby was sleeping through the night every single night and never cried, ever. For someone whose baby was waking her up every two hours and cried pretty consistently throughout the day, this news was not taken lightly. Not only do I not believe that her baby never cried, because all babies cry, the fact that she was claiming her newborn child was sleeping through the night at 2 weeks of life is simply neglect. Infants that young need to eat every 2-3 hours. To me, what that status was saying is that she was not being a very good mother, and that, I can live with. The lesson here is probably not to make outrageous claims to a sleep deprived, hormonal, new mom.

Last night, during a 3am feeding nonetheless, I see another one. She claims that her 6 week old had rolled over three times. I immediately dropped Facebook, and referenced a monthly milestone chart for newborns. The verdict is in- advanced babies may roll over as early as 3 months, but most do not until 5-6 months. Girl be cray cray.

Incase She Who Must Not Be Named does read this- you know who you are. No one believes that your baby is performing miracles. I'm all for bragging about how cute your own kid is, because let's face it, I do it all the time, but she is simply committing a crime of mommyhood.

See? Cutest kid ever. I don't lie. 

We do have exciting news though! Harrison has moved out of newborn size diapers and onto size 1! He has hit the 8lb mark, fatty. 8lbs is really a huge milestone for us- new diapers, 0-3 month clothing instead of newborn, and my favorite: he can now fit the baby carrier! Meaning, I MIGHT be able to put him in it and use BOTH of my hands!! Imagine that!

Trying to capture the pure HORROR on the kid's face

I hate my neighbor

Update on the annoying, overly sensitive downstairs neighbor: Yesterday was football Sunday, so normal football Sunday activities commenced, like watching football, having a couple friends over, and eating... nothing crazy. Around 2pm, like a normal person, I got hungry and decided to make some lunch. As I'm making my grilled cheese, I hear pounding coming from directly below me. I didn't think much of it... at first. However, after I took a few more steps, the pounding continued, and this time more violently. I'm hoping you can guess what I'm about to tell you. Yes, you are correct. It was our psychotic neighbor down below pounding on his ceiling in retaliation to the horrible, unacceptable sounds of a person walking above him.

At this point, I was pissed. Obviously the act of making lunch in one's kitchen is an unforgivable crime.  Not to mention doing so at the ungodly hour of two o'clock in the afternoon. Plus, for those of you that haven't seen my kitchen, it is TINY. Like, I'm talking two people is a crowd. The length of the entire kitchen spans probably 6 steps. This is why I cannot fathom how standing by the stovetop, taking occasional steps to the refrigerator in the process of making a grilled cheese was THAT disruptive to him.

I wish

This guy is clearly out of his mind, and an awful candidate for apartment living. If you don't want to hear people walking above you, don't opt for a first floor apartment. Or, better yet, don't live in an apartment building that is very clearly poorly built, where the walls and floors are paper thin. Once again, like the last time, both parties were home all day, so if he really had a problem, he could have easily come up the stairs and said something to us. I was about to go give him a piece of my mind before I realized that wasting the energy on him wasn't worth it. You just can't argue with crazy.

To make matters worse, we had a sleeping baby in the other room that took FOREVER to fall asleep, and if his pounding had woken Harrison up, I would have flipped shit.

So there you have it for that rant.

In better news, I had my 6 week postpartum check-up today and everything looks good! I can't believe its already been 6 weeks since having the little one! Time flies.

Realizations

First I have to point out the obvious- that I changed the design of the blog! I like it better, except that I can't figure out how to get the image at the top of the page centered. Does anyone have any suggestions  or know how to do that??

Onto my realizations. Most, if not all, of them are about motherhood. Go figure.

1. Motherhood has made me more in tune with my inner ape.

No, seriously. For one, I almost always have a little ape attached to some part of my body. Secondly, I have become very efficient at picking things up with my feet. Burp cloths, bibs, my phone. You really fine tune these skills with you are constantly left with only one open arm. Makes me appreciate the evolution theory.

Essentially Harrison and I

2. Having a baby makes you extremely popular. 

I got a taste of this in the final days of my pregnancy when my phone was blowing up like no other with people asking me if the baby had come yet. Now that he has come, my popularity has reached a new level. I have at least one, if not multiple, visitors a day. They come bearing gifts, flowers, food, etc. My Facebook posts now get, on average, 45 likes. For now, while the little man has no idea what's going on, I'll pretend that all of this attention is still just for me (because it's not like he can appreciate it).

3. Breastfeeding has pros and cons. 

Pros: 

• best diet plan ever and burns something like 500 calories a day. I am constantly hungry, but losing weight at the same time!
• extremely beneficial for the baby

Cons:

• middle of the night feedings. Dave gets to sleep, while I am up for about an hour every two-three hours. you do the math. (I can tell you what that equals: no sleep)
• being Harrison's food slave

4. I function a lot better than I thought I would on minimal sleep.

Once I get my coffee, that is. Part two of this realization is that I knew I loved coffee before, but I can't even tell you how necessary it is to my functionality as a human being. That being said, I am one serious zombie prior to my caffeine fix. But afterwards, I almost feel normal. I've finally arrived at the point where I have just adjusted to the lack of sleep. Instead of being groggy and sleepy all day, I have been productive when Harrison naps (something I thought would NEVER happen!). I clean the apartment, blog, run errands, cook dinner... basically you can just call me the world's best housewife girlfriend. For the record though- I miss sleep more than I can even express.

5. Smiles are GREAT.

Harrison has been smiling for real lately! He must have read that blog post. He had me like keeled over laughing this morning with his little, random, contagious smiles. Not to mention that this was my pre-coffee zombie stage when I want to kill everything that is in my path, so the fact that he had me not only smiling, but laughing, is amazing. I guess that's the voodoo magic that babies have. 

I'm going to be a ladies man and you can't stop me

already practicing the prime of his asian. So proud. 

random assortment

I have a random assortment of topics to discuss today, so bear with me. 

1. Tonight is the first night of football! Horray!! I am a devoted fan of the NFL, specifically the Colts. And when I say the Colts, what I probably mean (although I'm ashamed to admit) is Peyton Manning's Colts. You know, the Superbowl winning, practically unstoppable team from Indy. A brief history of why I became a fan- a guy friend of mine in middle school forced me to watch a football game with him. At the time, all I knew was that I detested football. It was a Bills vs. Colts game, and since he was a Bills fan, I chose to root for the Colts to spite him. And so there you have it.

As excited as I am for the start of the season, I'm also facing an inner dilemma. I have never known the Colts without Manning, so going through my first season sans Peyton is distressing me a little. Its like, I love watching the guy play (I mean really, who doesn't?), so am I going to turn pro-Broncos against my own will? I have nothing against the Broncos other than that they stole our beloved quarterback, and that they are not the Colts. 

Who knows. All I know is that if I'm being honest, if it weren't for all the Colts gear I own, I would probably just jump ship and completely devote myself to whichever team Peyton is on. However, I have way too much Colts merchandise to desert them. Andrew Luck, please give us a decent season.

2. Thought I would share the results of our dinner date from the last blog post. Mexican and margs was pretty much the world's best choice for my first night out on the town post-baby. We dropped Harrison off at my parent's as he was screaming crying, leaving me a nervous wreck. It was my first time leaving him and he was wailing, what do you expect?? Come back to find him sound asleep on my mom, so safe to say he was in good hands. Our meal was amazing, the margarita was delicious, and I only texted my mom twice while we were gone to check in. Successful evening I'd say.

Stuffed avocado yum yum

much deserved margarita!! (I realize it looks exactly like white wine)

3. This past weekend, we brought Harrison to Pennslyvania to meet my gram/his great-gram. The video of their first encounter is on my sister's blog, and it is hysterical. My gram is one funny lady

pretty sure at this point they were both asleep

The drive is about 3 and a half hours, so normally I could cruise through that. I used to be one of those psycho drivers that absolutely REFUSED to make stops for anything besides gas (I'm also a pro at holding my pee so that helped) but now that philosophy is completely out the window. 3 and a half hour car rides mean stopping at least once for a feeding.

daddy and Harrison after a long day of travelling

this is my happy-to-be-alive-for-one-whole-month photo!

A trip to the Zoo

If you don't already know this about me, I LOVE animals. Therefore, I love zoos. Yesterday was a gorgeous day out, so we decided to take Harrison on his first trip to the zoo, for my enjoyment more than his. I made SURE to document the entire trip for the baby book, but more importantly, for the blog. Duh. 

Thrilled to be there

Dave with his people

Rhinos are pretty adorbs

One of my many obsessions in life is penguins. They are just so great.

THE ESSENCE OF LIFE

Just like a big kitten?

Prime of my Asian... Tourist

Attempting a family portrait. Fail.

The highlight of the trip was easily this occurrence. Some background explanation is needed here. The other day we were watching Rob Dyrdek's new show, Ridiculousness (insert a plug for how much I love Rob Dyrdek. It's a lot). Basically, the show is just a compilation of hilarious videos from the internet. One video he showed was of these two turtles mating,  where the turtle on top (which I'm assuming is the male) was making these really funny grunting noises. Well, we got to experience that in live action. It was quite the sight to see. I tried taking a video, but Harrison's crying in the background drowned out the turtle sex noises. Safe to say Harrison's first trip to the zoo was a success, complete with the passionate love making of tortoises. 

Social Butterfly

I seriously suck at consistent blogging. I'm ashamed at myself for only blogging once since the kid was born. In my defense, Dave and I basically share one computer (my laptop is a serious POS and worthless, leaving us with only one that functions). Dave has been studying for his CPA exam, and in the interest of him passing, I did not try to hog the computer for blogging purposes. He starts his job this Tuesday, so I will have more free time with the laptop, and less of an excuse for not blogging.

So what is life after baby like? Exhausting, tiring, and sleepless. Not that those are all synonyms. This first month --yes, we're going on the 1 month mark! Happy One-Month Birthday, Harrison!-- has been quite the whirlwind. In case you don't know much about babies, they really aren't too much fun in their first few weeks of life. They don't smile, you can't tickle them to make them laugh, and pretty much the only interaction is them crying and screaming in your face. Literally all they do is eat, sleep, and dirty their diaper... with emphasis on eat. Harrison eats more than anyone I know. I guess when you are only 5 pounds you can afford to do that. 

It probably sounds like I hate my life and my baby. Not at ALL. I'm just saying that I'm tired, and the fun part of having a baby has yet to come. This part is definitely work, and hard work at that. I had been getting so discouraged that I looked up when babies start to smile. I need some appreciation for all of this mommy business, man. Just so you know, on average it's around 6-8 weeks. 4 weeks down and 2 to go. Bring on those smiles.

That being said, Harrison and the fam have been quite the social butterflies lately. This past weekend was his  0th Birthday Party. Not really. Dave's parents held a shower for him in Watertown so that the Porter family and friends could meet him. As we all know, he is the cutest baby ever, so obviously he was very popular. I'd say like at least 20 different people held him (it only gave me slight anxiety), including his great great-grandmother, who is 98 years old! 

Harrion's pissed. 

Continuing the social butterfly agenda, Harrison and fam went for their first walk! I had not been able to walk or move around for more than approximately 5 minutes without my incision starting to really bother me, until a few days ago. Finally feeling like I could embark on a journey without pain, we ventured into town. 

Pushing a baby doll in a stroller

Tonight, my parents are nice enough to watch Harrison so that Dave and I go out to dinner, and mommy can get her drink on. We're going to the best Mexican restaurant in Rochester, Selena's, with the BEST margaritas known to man. Can't be sure when the last time I had a margarita was, but let me tell you, I'm pretty freaking excited. I'm currently counting down the hours (six). 

The next few photos are just for the cuteness factor.

Little monkey man

Morning, Mom.

I can't be cute ALL the time

A Baby Story

My blogging hiatus is finally over. I'm here today to write all about my little man, Harrison Gregory, and bore you all with the grueling details of my birth story. For those of you that like the show, "A Baby Story", you will probably enjoy this post, and for those of you that don't, here is your warning.

Taking this where I left off with my last post, my second due date had come and gone and still no baby. My doctor had us go in for an ultrasound when he was 4 days past due, to monitor how the baby was doing in there. After seeing the results, she decided to induce labor because his conditions were not ideal. So we make our way to the hospital, calm, cool and collected (or at least thats how I'm going to pretend to remember it). 

Pretty much the second we got settled in our room was about the time shit got real. They give me drugs to induce labor, and as soon as I got my first contraction, the baby's heart rate dropped. The next thing I know, I have an oxygen mask on, staring at the faces of about 8 strangers in scrubs, hearing a lot of things being said and not understanding what the heck was going on. What I did know was: I did NOT want a c-section, and needed my mom there asap. Long story short- baby was not responding well to the drugs I was being given, and we had to resort to an emergency c-section. The doctors also had to put me under general anesthesia to perform the operation, so from that point forward, my memory of the whole ordeal is a lot fuzzy.

When people ask me how I felt holding Harrison for the first time, or how the first night went, I can't really tell them. Waking up from the anesthesia left me so out of it. Like, I know I FaceTimed with my sister, but can't remember what was said. I know I talked to my Gram on the phone, but that's also pretty much all I could tell you. So that kind of sucks. Not the way I would have liked for things to go down, but what can you do. Harrison and I are happy and healthy so that's all that really matters.

That was a very condensed recollection. Didn't wanna bore you too much. Now I'll leave you with a plethora of pictures of him and his cuteness! 

I'm just waking up from a nap and not in the mood to get my picture taken, Mom. 

Quasimodo 

Our first day home from the hospital. And yes, that IS a smile, not just gas.