How the First Month Went

Dear Zachary,

We did it. We kept you alive, fed, and watered well-hydrated for one month. We've kept your litterbox clean diapers changed and trimmed your claws (I'm not crossing that one out, because really, those nails are like daggers!) and generally tried not to compare you too much to your big brother Walnut. Honestly, they should really be more skeptical at hospitals before they let people loose with brand new human beings. Despite all the baby classes, books, websites, and conversations I've had leading up to your arrival, there's really nothing that truly prepared me for reality. Swaddling cats and changing the diapers on mannequins is nothing like doing so on a real live baby (FYI, it's marginally easier to swaddle you than Walnut, and decidedly more difficult to change your diaper than a mannequin's. Mannequins don't have projectile poop in three installments, for starters). Still, we learned and tentatively feel we've got a handle on this newborn care thing. I think. Crap, now that I've said that, you're going to pull a fast one on us and prove that we know nothing, Jon Snow.

I mean, just look at that smirk. 

Remember how I said in your birth story how much you were like your dad in your punctuality? Well, it turns out that you are really like your dad in a whole lot of other ways too: everyone who sees you says that you look just like him (despite having my eyes and mouth), you are a champion farter and pooper, and you are an overachiever. It only took you one week to recover your birth weight (and more!), you're in the 80th percentile for height and head circumference (but not weight -- you're a skinny baby guy, despite gaining over two pounds since birth), you got over the ubiquitous Asian jaundice in no time at all, your umbilical cord fell off cleanly after only a week and half, and your latch has had the admiration of nurses and lactation consultants since day one.

Unfortunately, you compensate for your achievements by being really, really bad at sleeping. You know how I said that the baby websites and books did not prepare us? Well, that's really because of the lies they told about how you'd be sleeping all the time as a newborn. Sixteen to twenty hours a day, they said. You'll have to try really hard to wake your baby to eat, they said. Ha! Try twelve hours a day, and eating every hour on the hour, with fifteen minute naps in between. I have to laugh at all those well-meaning people who say nap when baby naps, because by the time I fall asleep (despite the sleep-deprivation, I find it really hard to turn off my brain enough to drift off -- all those things I need to remember to do, but somehow can't because of the dreaded Mommy brain phenomenon), you're up again, ready to eat for another forty minutes. Lather, rinse, repeat. And yet, it's strangely satisfying nursing you, maybe because it shuts you up so effectively, or that your milk-drunk face is so obviously blissed out. It almost makes up for the feeding log that, according to your Auntie Candy, looks like somebody just threw confetti all over the screen. The only consolation is that your pediatrician says that sleeping so little can be a sign of intelligence, and maybe you'll do calculus at twelve! If so, you'll have two years over your dad, who started calculus at fourteen.

Milk-drunk face. 

All this to say, having you in our lives is a constant discovery process. For parents who are used to being overachievers themselves (and therefore being able to work hard enough or research enough to get the answer to anything and everything -- I am a classic Hermione whose first instinct is to look for the answer in the library Internet), it has been a humbling process. They (who are they, anyway? I want to punch them sometimes for saying all these things) say that there are things you can only learn once you become a parent, and to be honest, I was, and still am, very afraid of what God might use you to teach me. I like having the answers, I like being selfish, and I like getting lots of things done. He is using you to teach me that I just need to depend on Him for strength and grace (because otherwise there's no human way I'm making it through what feels like one long, sleepless postpartum night), that humans (and therefore babies, since they are small humans) are messy and don't follow the book, that I am more selfish at heart than I thought, but can grow in that area (yes, I will sacrifice my sleep to make sure that you are full and have a clean diaper, and I will hold you until my arm wants to fall off), that it's okay to just sit and rest and enjoy you in my arms.

With a growing love,
Mommy


Likes:

• Eating. It is your favorite thing to do, and any time you're crying, it's the only thing that reliably calms you down. 
• Bottle-feeding. I know this sounds redundant since your first like is eating in general, but even more than my boob, you love drinking pumped milk from a bottle. It takes you all of five minutes to pound 2.5 ounces, which always makes your daddy really excited. After a bottle, you always sleep for a lot longer than if you had breastfed. 
• Spitting up. This is probably a direct result of the previous activity, since all that eating-your-feelings inevitably results in more milk than your tiny tummy can handle. You always look really smug after spitting up, although that might be me reading into your expression.
• Projectile pooping in the middle of the night. You get really smiley after squirting it out all over the changing pad at 3 AM. 
• Bath time. I'm afraid you're going to take after me and enjoy taking your own sweet time in the warm water. 

"Amazing! I could get used to this bathing thing!"

• Falling asleep in the car.  Again, just like me, you find it impossible to stay awake for more than ten minutes if the car is moving. 
• Going outside. If you're upset and you can't possibly be hungry, and I've checked your diaper, burped you and given you gas drops, then going outside is the surefire way to shock you into silence. You also love going for walks in your stroller and usually relax or even start dozing. 
• Staring at my face. You look absolutely entranced, and it's absolutely endearing. 

Dislikes:

• Being put down during naps. You'll be sleeping as sweetly as can be in our arms, but as soon as you're put down in your Pack-N-Play, swing, or bouncer, you start freaking out. How dare we try to restore feeling in our arms!
• Getting out of the bath. As soon as we lift you out of the tub, you sound like you're being tortured. But once you're dried off, things are good again.  

• Red lights. If the car stops to obey traffic laws, you protest. Loudly. 
• Clothes being pulled over your head. Because of this, we always pull your onesie down when taking it off, regardless of whether it's poopy or not. 
• Dr. Harvey Karp and his 5S's. Okay, that's more me than you. I resent the carrot that he dangled in front of me -- do these things and your baby will be the happiest baby on the block! -- only to find that none of those things work on you, my sleep-resistant child. 

Still deciding about / it depends on your mood:

• You're still deciding if you like being carried in the Baby K'tan. Sometimes you're okay with it, but only if I'm bouncing and swaying. Once you even deigned to fall asleep in it for long enough for me to write a rec letter. 

• Pacifiers. We tried four different brands of pacifier before finding one that you don't hate, but don't like either. You look really unsure when we give it to you, like you're trying to decide if you should cry or not. 

• That swing that your dad spent so much money on. It's always a toss-up, whether you'll sit in it or not, or whether you want the setting turned to high, low, or not at all. 
• Tummy time. Sometimes you almost seem to enjoy it, and you make all sorts of faces, but sometimes you most definitely are over it. 

Ridonkulous. 

Walnut supervises you during tummy time. 

People's reactions to you:

• Your 婆婆's first order of business (after cutting your umbilical cord) was to check whether you have double eyelids or not. This is so typical, I just have to laugh. 
• Your Auntie Emily managed to take four pictures of the placenta that nourished you, but none of actual you. 
• Your Uncle Derek said that holding you for the first time "exceeded expectations."
• On our first trip to the pediatrician, we stopped by Starbucks because we were dying so sleep-deprived, and a random old man walked by your stroller, looked at you, and said emphatically, "Future leader!"
• Your pediatrician actually proclaimed you an overachiever, because of your fantastic weight gain. 
• Your Auntie Elaine, upon finding out that we called you "baby burrito," wrote a little song for you based off of the lyrics to "Baby Beluga."

All wrapped up like a California burrito!

Ways you take after family members:

• You have a super long skinny torso, just like your mom. Despite being in the 37th percentile for weight, you are in the 81st percentile for height, and we know it's all in the torso because you are already too long for your newborn onesies. This means you have to wear the 3 month onesies, which then look ridiculous because you could fit two of you inside, they're so wide. 
• You like to poop after your diaper has just been changed, just like your big brother, who poops right after we clean out his litterbox. And like Walnut, you claw and kick frantically when you're not pleased about being carried. 
• You like to leave just one bite, just like your dad. You'll pound the whole bottle in three minutes, but leave just one little gulp of milk in there that you refuse to finish. 

Nope. Not having any of it.