Baby Fog

Now that Isaac is seven months old, I'm emerging from the 6-month fog that is life with a newborn. I've experienced it with all three boys, but never seem to remember why I felt that way after it has passed. So here's a little documentation to refresh my memory when my friends are greeting me through their own newborn haze...

• During those first 6 months, I'm fully supporting the growth of a human being. He may be out of my belly, but he still gets all nourishment from moi.
• As he grows, he eats more. As he eats more, I sleep more. Most days, it felt like an actual fog would settle around my brain at 1pm, forcing me to nap as my factory--er, body--worked overtime to support someone that's almost visibly growing.
• This fatigue and the accompanying cocktail of postpartum and nursing hormones saps me of creativity and memory -- inconvenient attributes when you're a writer and mother of 3.
• Said cocktail also makes exercise daunting because... 1) I can't afford to be even more tired, 2) Nursing every 3hrs and managing everyone's schedules make the logistics...challenging (also because it's harder to find sitters I trust with a newborn), and 3) The hormones make my body (temporarily!) old and creaky and injury-prone.
• To complicate matters this time, Isaac does NOT tolerate caffeine well (as I discover every time I try it again), so I've been on my own in the energy department.

Excuse me while I just squeeze
this thumb in there.

Fortunately, the first six months are also a beautiful time of...

• cuddling with a newborn, 
• feeling his super-soft hair and skin on my cheek, 
• bathing his belly and cleaning between his teensy toes, 
• hearing him coo in the backseat or belly-laugh at his crazy big brothers, 
• watching him examine his hands as he turns them in front of his face (What are they?),
• confidently focusing my time/attention on being a mom,
• carrying him on my chest in the Ergo,
• loving the taste of water by the gallon,
• inspiring strangers to smile or comment wherever we go,
• having 20-minute breaks of rest and quiet reserved for the two of us 5-6 times/day,
• not having to remember or buy separate food for him,
• getting reacquainted with the crib room ladies and nursing room at church,
• knowing I still have a decent (though dwindling) excuse for the extra weight I'm carrying,
• comforting my baby with the ultimate soothing "machine,"
• having a stationary cuddlebug who needs no prefab entertainment or discipline,
• taking pictures and soaking up every moment of this fleeting, crucial season of his life.

Teething, anyone?