Friday, December 14, 2012

You Gotta Feed THE Baby!

Okay, I'll admit it.  Juggling everything to keep Annabelle fed and clean is no easy task.  I'm 5 days in and at times I feel like a Keystone Cop Dad.  The thing is, when they are hungry babies tend to cry.  A lot.

Plus, babies don't exactly give you the opportunity to get your own stuff together and have it all right there ready to go the instant they decide "Hey, I'm kinda hungry.  Milk dad. Chop Chop!  What's the hold up?  NOW ALREADY!"

So, as I am attempting to gather myself and, let's be honest here, keep the piercing cries from penetrating to the inner most parts of my brains core, I am still kinda rushing around making sure that everything is in order.  The formula is mixed and warmed, the pillow and clean burp cloth are on the chair and at the ready, and the binky in within arms reach.

Then, when I do believe I have it all ready and can commence with the feeding routine, inevitably something goes wrong in the process.  Sitting down with her the pillow will get knocked off the chair, or her pacifier will  fall out of her mouth and onto the floor, where I will then have to decide how dirty it is down there and deciding 'not clean enough' will have to get up with here and go wash it off.  Or the burp cloth will hit the floor, or the blanket.  It never fails. I seem to drop something, often many things, in the course of each feeding.  It's humorous.

In the middle of all this I will have to do a diaper change, and of course by the time I have finished with that lovely job and sit back down for more feeding, still holding the baby, I realize I have left something on the changing table. I think I have muttered 'You gotta be kidding me' on more than one occasion.

On the bright side I am starting to anticipate these little faux pas and hopefully fewer of them will be occurring going forward. I guess that is just a part of finding our routine.  Annabelle, for her part, is like a relentless Drill Sargent working me into shape.  'Drop something?  - Give me 50cc grunt!"

And speaking of shape, this whole caring for a baby is not exactly like a workout at Golds Gym, but since I have less time for frivolities like eating regularly, I have dropped about 5 pounds recently.

I did say I was dropping all kinds of things caring for Annabelle.  I've wanted to drop 10-15 lbs for quite a while now.  I'm getting a good start, so there's that.

That't the update for today.  I'm hanging in there.  We are having good times and honestly there's nothing quite as sweet as having a newborn sleeping on your chest.

Cheers!

2 comments:

daniel said...

Fun times. At least your next kid is 5, not still in diapers. I had that all too often.

Take pictures. Seriously. They change month to month at this stage and it's gone so fast.

James (SeattleDad) said...

@daniel - And of that, I am thankful. Yes, we live in an age of pictures. I think I already have more of Annabelle than there were of me in all my childhood. Crazy to think.