The Stitch

PACIFIER!

WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE ALL OF THE PACIFIERS?!?!?!?!?!

PACIFIER!!!!! ARRRR!!!!!!!

Peace, till next

Things 'round the Piper homestead are going well. Brian accepted a temporary job with a great company doing fun web/cd projects. His first one was an advertisement featuring snowboarding (skyboarding) skydivers, so he feels right at home.

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday for a BP check, weight and incision check. Blood pressure is FABULOUS. I've lost 24 lbs, and my incision looks great. I love my doctor, because he said, "You look downright SKINNY!"

I'm not fooling myself - I'm not even close to "skinny." But it sure felt good to have doc tell me that after all the weight gain lectures over the past several months.

I'm still adjusting to motherhood - some of it is so easy and it comes so naturally, other stuff is still kind of hard to get used to. E-Beth and I are both adjusting pretty well though. Brian has mastered all of it.

Example: the other night I was feeding E-Beth, and she had polished off all breast milk, and was hungrily chowing down on formula. When she was finished, I started burping her, and the poor child spewed forth this horrific mucous-ish-half-digested formula in copious quantities. As luck would have it, the entire spewage drizzled down the length of my right sleeve. It was warm and squishy and I almost vomited on spot.

So when people tell you, "ohhh, it's different when it's your own child!" They are lying. It's something you definitely have to get used to. I'm working on it. This morning she spewed again, and I didn't even flinch - so I am getting better at mommy-ing. (But then again, it was 5 am, dark, and it wasn't sloshing around in my right sleeve.)

Even still, babies are fun. I love being a Mom. And we've developed a whole new language to go with this parenting gig.

Vanilla: the right breast
Chocolate: the left breast
Daddy Boob: Bottle/formula (anything that Daddy can feed to E-Beth)

Brian let me sleep a LONG time last night. I went to bed at about 10, and didn't wake up until about 5 am. He took care of all the night feedings for me and let me catch up on sleep. I'm ever-so grateful. I would have let him sleep in this morning, but he had to go in to the office at the new job, and Skye REALLY wanted some snuggly Daddy time, so I let the fuzzball loose in the bedroom and Brian woke up to a slimy-tongued face bath.

That's all for now. E-Beth and I are going to go snuggle for a bit, and then I'm going to head up to the sewing room and try to get organized. I'm hoping to ease back to work within the week - if it's ok with E-Beth.

Peace, till next

I was admitted to the hospital and my darling, handsome husband arrived shortly thereafter. He arrived a strapping young beer-consuming, tool-obsessed, Home Depot-lovin' guy's guy, and sometime during our hospital stay, the body snatchers arrived and replaced him with a formula-mixin', diaper-changin', Babies R Us-shopping maniac.

I first noticed this NEW Brian on our first night home. My husband is normally the least prone to panic of anyone I know. In fact, I have *never* seen this man with ruffled feathers, and I've seen him in plenty of situations where any normal person would have died a thousand times over from panic. Brian is always calm, cool and collected. Or at least he used to be, before the body snatchers stole him from me.

Day one home from the hospital: Daylight hours progressed without incident. We had been attempting to breast feed, but since my milk had not come in, we were supplementing with one ounce of formula at each feeding. We settled in for a long three-hour sleep, and were awakened by loud, frantic screaming from our fair child.

We both sprang up from sound sleeping patterns and started fumbling around for light. Once the room was illuminated, we both soared into freak-out mode.

Me: BRIAN! She's got puke all over her! (We now know the difference between puke and spit up)

Elizabeth: SCREAM, SCREAM, SCREAM

Bri: OMG! OMG! Where's the sucky?!?! WHERE IS THE SUCKY?!?!?! HEATHER!!! I CAN'T FIND THE SUCKY THING!!!

Me: Baby! Calm down! It's in the medicine cabi-

Bri: IT'S NOT IN THE MEDICINE CABINET! WHERE IS THE SUCKY THING?!?!?!

Elizabeth: SCREAM, SCREAM, SCREAM

Me: BRIAN! RELAX! It's in the cabinet over the toilet!

Bri: GOT IT!!!

note: I had six feet and three inches of stark naked, cold and shivering Daddy-man running around before me.

Brian dashed to the phone and called the hospital to make sure little Elizabeth wasn't going to die from spitting up. The nurse seemed only slightly annoyed by our stupidity.

"Ummm, babies do spit up." she said. "It's quite normal."

We managed to suck all the ickies out of Elizabeth's nostrils and mouth, She was quite content and fell back asleep almost instantly. Brian and I stayed awake for the next six hours, our bodies wired with adrenaline, to make sure she was breathing ok and that we hadn't completely failed our firstborn on DAY ONE of home life. From that day on, we have made little E sleep in an almost upright position.

The next day my body-snatched husband went shopping. He spent over $200 at Babies R Us and purchased the entire Preemie clothing section , including the most adorable "I love my Daddy" jumper. Then he went to Walmart and bought a "Dad" bathrobe, fuzzy slippers, and then the clincher.

When my husband came home with a fuzzy toilet seat cover and matching towels, I knew that he had been replaced with a body-snatched, pod-hatched clone.

Note that I am NOT complaining. I like my new Domestic Goddess Husband! I like the thought of NOT having to shop for new towels and matching bathroom accessories. I really hate doing those tasks, and now Brian seems content in handling the finishing touches of our household decorating needs!! (And damn, if everything he bought didn't match our bathroom PERFECTLY!)

On Friday, Brian received word that he was being laid off from his job. At first I was a little bit hysterical (Okay, I was a LOTTA bit hysterical, which I attribute to a cyclone of post-pregnancy hormones) but then after we thought about it, we realized what an absolute gift this is.

Brian can stay home with me and E-Beth for a while and collect unemployment until he lands the perfect job! Even in the past few days, he's already received several job offers and freelance opportunities, so we're not going to starve.

How many new fathers ever have a chance to spend the first few weeks/months of their firstborn's life with them, uninterrupted, and getting to know them like this? Not many. Like I said, this is a gift. And we're rather happy about it.

Here's a shot of Brian enjoying his first day of being a non-productive member of society:

On the first day of unemployment, Brian came into the living room wearing a spiffy new grey sweat suit and announced, "Get used to this look, baby!"

On the second day of unemployment, Brian and Skye went jogging and Brian wore his spiffy, almost-new sweatsuit. He did a lot of sweating.

On the third day of unemployment, Brian's spiffy sweatsuit was covered with sweat, spit-up and was smelling a bit funky. "Think I should shower?" he asked. I gave him a quiet, smiley nod and while he was in the shower, I stole his sweatsuit.

So, we're all home, happy, healthy and smelling fresh and clean. Elizabeth got a bath today too, and her belly button fell off yesterday! Life doesn't get much better than this. ;-)

. . . . except when I sneeze - it hurts to sneeze. . . .

Peace, till next