4/07/2008

Mr. Mom Day One Recap

Posted by Brandon |

Ginormous Boobs made the mistake of saying "can't wait to hear how this went" on yesterday's post. Ask and you shall receive...

3:45 AM - Day one gets off to a rip-roaring start when Addie wakes wide up well before she usually does and only a half hour after she last ate. Fussiness ensues. Addie and I head out to the couch to watch SportsCenter and let Mommy sleep.

5:00 AM - After more than an hour of SportsCenter and nonstop binky replacement, Death? wakes up to go to work. A quick feeding and Addie is back in my arms, pissed.

5:45 AM - Death? leaves for work. I'm now officially flying solo.

6:00 AM - After about 45 minutes of being pissed off and fussy, Addie finally falls asleep. Daddy also finally gets a little bit of sleep.

6:45 AM - Seriously? 45 minutes of sleep and that's it? You can't be serious! Wide awake Addie wakes me up and decides that sleep just isn't in her best interest. No crying, just little noises and wide eyes. It's back to the living room and eventually to the couch again for some more SportsCenter.

7:30 AM - Addie falls asleep in my arms. I fall asleep with her in my arms. This ain't so bad.

8:15 AM - Good god! That is some loud crying. Now it's definitely time for a feeding.

8:30 AM - After 15 minutes of her crying and me fumbling around trying to get a bottle ready, I commence feeding. She likes.

9:00 AM - Feeding over. Change diaper. Change clothes. Now it's play time.

10:00 AM - Play time ends with fussiness, it's back to the couch for some gentle rocking and again, a nap for both of us.

11:00 AM - Uh oh, she sounds like she's hungry again. Yet we have an hour comes home for the lunchtime feeding. A panic starts to set in.

11:10 AM - False alarm. She's back asleep.

11:30 AM - YO GABBA GABBA'S ON!!! YEA!!! Addie sleeps through it, I watch anyway. My name is Brandon. I like to dance!

12:00 PM - MOMMY'S HOME! SHOWER TIME FOR DADDY!!!

12:30 PM - Mommy's gone. Luckily Addie is happy with some play time on her mat.

12:50 PM - Addie tires of play time on her mat. I'm trying to make something quick for lunch so I put her in her swing. Something isn't quite right.

1:00 PM - Standing in the kitchen, putting a pita in the toaster, I hear one of the loudest poop sounds I have ever heard, then another. I rush over to Addie and lift her out of her swing, obviously she'll need a change. What I didn't expect to find was the biggest poop of her short life. It went halfway up her back and out each side of her diaper. She slimed the swing seat, her onsie, her pants, her socks and her changing table pad. There was poop everywhere.

1:05 PM - While changing her, she gives me some of the biggest, happiest smiles and giggles she has ever dealt out. Giant poop is forgiven.

1:30 PM to 4:00 PM - Everything goes pretty well after that. Some general fussiness, a nap or two, a bottle at 2:30.

4:00 PM - Mommy's home! Cranky baby goes to happy baby in mere minutes.

5:30 PM - Mommy and baby take a nap.

6:00 PM - Daddy sneaks out (just kidding, I had permission) and goes to Rookees Sports Bar to watch the NCAA basketball championship game, reflect on my first day as a house husband, and knock back a couple of well deserved beers.

11:20 PM - Daddy writes recap of days events with the hope that tomorrow will be much easier and with a lot of strengthened respect for Death? and all mommies that do this. This is way harder than any of my days at work.


7 comments:

kapgar said...

She "slimed" it? You're comparing your child to a character from Ghostbusters? Oh Death? must be so proud. ;-)

Good job, m'man. I'm not sure if I'm scared away from parenthood or looking forward to it more now so that I can pray the same does not happen to me. But I know karma...

Avitable said...

You hardly went crazy at all. Impressive.

Brandon said...

Kapgar - Since most of my kid posts are going into a baby book and are being read by the grandparents, I decided to clean up the language. What I should've said was, "fucking destroyed".

Avi - Yeah, not too bad. A little frazzled and a little tired, but overall, sane. And today is going pretty well already.

Peeved Michelle said...

Re: Fumbling with the bottle

When I was on maternity leave, this process helped me a lot. At night, when Kenna was on the ready-to-feed formula (same process for breastmilk), I would make up three bottles and put them in a bottle cooler with ice packs in the upstairs bathroom. When she woke up, I would put the bottle in the sink with hot water to warm it up while I changed the baby. It would be warm enough by the time I was done to feed her.

During the day, I would use these formula dispeners and pre-measure the formula for all her bottles. I would also have the water in all her bottles ready and waiting on the counter. Then, it would take me less than a minute to make a bottle when Kenna needed one.

If your baby is exclusively on breastmilk, I would say that you should at least have enough milk thawed for the whole day and in bottles already in the fridge so that you can just take a bottle out of the fridge and heat it up. That's assuming she won't take a cold bottle because heating isn't really necessary. If she will take a cold bottle, you are even better off.

Really, this giant comment could have been very short if I had just told you to set up an assembly line - one that works best for your situation.

Brandon said...

Michelle - Thankfully, I've got bottles in the fridge ready to go. Death? has taken care of that. I just forgot to get the bottle warmer out so I had to set it up and get it ready and then get the bottle into it. With a screaming baby on one arm, it's a challenge, as I'm sure you know.

Anonymous said...

You'll get the hang of it! And how about showering WITH your girl (the baby)

Ginormous Boobs said...

I've never even changed a diaper. Only held a baby 3 times in my life. So you impress me greatly.

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