– I need to stop threatening to eat my baby, no matter how chubby and delicious his legs look.

– I wonder if all almost-four-month-olds know how to make THE WORST NOISE IN THE WORLD. Baby Evan has started screeching like he’s being strangled and he has to make sure ALL the neighbors know it. I’m expecting the police to show up any minute.

– Oh God, is it teething? Is it going to keep happening? I’d better Google “how long does teething last?”

– The baby loves the dog more than he loves me. A LOT more.

– There is no one in the world I like hate enough to ask to babysit a child who can’t be more than 10 minutes away from my boobs, so I guess I’ve got a couple more months before we get a parents night out.

– I hereby declare this week “Take-out week” since I refuse to turn on the stove at 85+ degrees.

– Taking care of a screaming child uses up an entire days worth of patience. Telemarketers and ATT tech support beware.

– Jumping and splashing in the river like a couple of 15-year olds is better than marriage counseling.

– After watching that “news” story about cankles on tv this morning, I think a) America is totally screwed up and b) I finally found a body part that I can be totally happy about. No cankles here!

– Since when can my tiny baby boy stand up!? You can’t even roll over, where do you think you’re going??
p.s. My in-laws gave us that onesie. Isn’t it hilarious? Now he looks even more delicious.

Dear Jeopardy,

Although I am confident my child is incredibly gifted and a true genius who will someday cure cancer, discover the secret to cold fusion, and invent a diet pill that causes chocolate to burn fat, lets give him a second to figure out how his hands work and why he can’t fit both in his mouth at once. So maybe you should cool it with the “Your child could be on Jeopardy!” emails for, say, five more years. Or at least until he stop crapping himself. K, thanks.

xoxo

Suzanne

My future genius at 14 weeks.

Things I have not had time to do yet today:
1. Eat
2. My 18 minute work-out video
3. Take a nap to make up for that 3 am feeding
4. Bring in the trash cans
5. Laundry
6. Put on a shirt not covered in spit-up
7. Make the bed
8. Take a shower

Things I DID do:
1. Change the baby
2. Feed the baby
3. Change the baby
4. Feed the baby
5. You get the idea
6. Call my doctor for a Diflucan prescription that I will probably won’t get to pick up until some time tomorrow since today is turning out to be an endless cycle of baby care.

So really, darling husband, when you announce you are “coming home for lunch” don’t be surprised when my response is more “Great, hold this kid while I pee” and less “I’ll be waiting for you, stud”.

It was one year ago this past weekend while we were visiting the same relatives up in Massachusetts that I turned to my husband and said these loving words:  “I feel like crap and I’m like 85% sure I’m pregnant so you better start being nicer to me.” Since then, I’ve thought about babies at least once an hour (8,760 times), said the word boobs on average once a day (365 times), and worried about something baby-related every minute (525,6oo times – ha, I didn’t even use a calculator for that one).

I’d say besides suffering from a severe case of baby-obsession, my life is not as different as I would have thought. Just fuller and a little smellier. I’m also less lazy, more patient, less judgemental, more empathetic and generally healthier if a little fatter. So I think that, yes, I DO recommend this baby thing. Now excuse me, my baby is crying again and has pooped through his pants, the dog just chewed up a tiny pair of socks, I haven’t eaten anything besides a handful of trailmix in 20 hours, my nipples are still burning and I smell like spoiled milk.

I’ve always been an over-packer. I cannot leave a 60-mile radius around my house without outfits for the following situations: what if we go to the beach? what if it’s cold at night? what if we go out to dinner? what if we have to walk really far? what if a giant asteroid hits earth? what if Steven Spielberg suddenly falls out of the sky and says “You! If only you had a red shirt you’d be PERFECT for the lead role in my next film!”? So I tend to carry a lot of stuff.

All that previous packing was NOTHING compared to the amount of crap you need with a baby. We didn’t even spend the night away from home and we still brought an entire car full of baby stuff. There’s the car seat, the stroller, the diaper bag, the other diaper bag, the outfits & burp cloths (because I still have the spitty-uppiest baby in the world), the pack’n’play, the sling carrier, the mei tai carrier, the toys, the bouncy seat…wait, where’s the bouncy seat? Did we forget the bouncy seat?!?!  Luckily, E’s cousin has two kids and a garage full of abandoned baby gear which happened to include a swing. I seriously don’t know how people used to survive before Fisher-Price.

Our trip was to Plymouth, Mass – I’ve always felt that was an appropriate place to spend the 4th, very America-y – and we had a good time. The baby was about as well behaved as a three month old could be. He took a nice long nap in my new baby carrier while we walked around town. Unfortunately, now all the pictures of him in Plymouth look like this:

But he was very happy being carried and he didn’t get a sunburn and besides a little numbness in my left shoulder this morning the mai tei worked great. That’s us standing next to Plymouth Rock. I know, how exciting. A rock. You’re so jealous of our proximity to a random rock on a whole beach full of rocks that has been designated as the official rock the Pilgrims landed on even though it’s definitely not. Oh and someone vandalized it so instead of saying “1620” it says “1820”. So America just lost two hundred years of history. Great job, douchebag vandal.

Here are some pictures from the rest of our day: