Into week 2, and the squid lives. We must be doing something right. Gates went back to work after a week and a half off, despite my inconsolable crocodile tears and irrational fears about doing this whole child rearing on my own. However, I found out very quickly that this stage of the game in parenthood is actually pretty easy, as the kid has literally no clue what is going on at any time whatsoever, so no matter how badly I do this, she probably will never know. If you’ve never spent time on the maternity leave cruise, here is a little sneak peek into the fun that would await you:

The majority of my time is spent with her attached to my boob by her beady little toothless mouth as I wander around aimlessly forgetting whatever task I was trying to accomplish about 1/3 of the way through said task. She loves this position:

 

– not just for nutrient purposes, and will scream like a banshee 7/10 times if I try to pop her off the goods when she is just lackadaisically suckling, and then frantically pretend like she is starving still so that I put her back on, where she will do a gulp for good measure and then right back to the casual suck.  The other 3/10 times when I pull her off she will stare at me with the widest most offended eyes as if she can’t believe how mean I am:

 

And then quickly scare the bejesus out of herself with gas that rivals that of a fully grown man’s, as evidenced by this face:

– signaling that it is then time to begin our other most time consuming activity – diaper duty. It is pretty much a non-stop cycle of feed, poop, sleep, repeat – and once you have the hang of that, you are pretty golden. However, this cycle moves at a fairly significantly horrifying pace, so you better bring your A-game if you want to get anything done in your day besides swirling around in this cycle with a maniacal smile on your face. Here are the tips I have so far:

1. Invest in a very portable bouncer type thingamabob so that you can set the kid down safely while you compete in activities such as the shower Olympics and pooping. We got ours resale for like $12. The actual bouncing mechanism doesn’t work, but she knows no different because she is a fresh nugget, so she seems happy as a little clam in there for a good 8 minutes or so, provided that she is completely stuffed full of baby juice and her bottom is wiped fairly clean. Use that 8 minutes wisely and rinse your sweat and sins off of yourself as if your life depended on it. Don’t dally too long in the hot water, because the baby timer will ding and then you might not get around to makeup or deodorant that day. Sad.
2. Have some diapers and wipes stashed at various  locales in your home, if you, like me, are incredibly lazy. We have a very unfortunate situation at our house titled “Cat Hates Dog”, so our animals literally live on different floors of our house. Since I am committed to showing the animals as much attention as I was able to pre-squid (after all, it’s not their fault that I got myself stuffed full of child), I spend some time on every floor of our house during the day and it makes it super convenient to be able to tend to baby’s unbelievably massive diaper situations without having to trek back and forth to the nursery every time she gets that look in her little eye.
3. Also snacks, stash snacks here and there for easy drowning your tears with crackers and chips access. Pro tip: stash your snacks when you are especially exhausted and out of it so it is like surprise Christmas when you discover them later in a moment of frustration and hunger. The crunchier the better – because the sound of yourself chewing might briefly mask the sounds of a pissed off baby yelling.
4. Set 1 goal to accomplish every day. Just 1. I’ve been finding that I spend much less time panicking about all the things I should or could be doing while I run around with spit up in my hair and no pants on, casually spurting breastmilk about, despite my full awareness that the landscapers are trimming bushes and peering into our house, and much more time just going with baby’s natural eat/poo/sleep schedule if I limit myself to just working on 1 little thing a day. For example: One day I worked on her baby book. One day I opened the mail. One day I watched 8 episodes of House. One day I cried over my student loans. One day we went to the grocery store. (that was a big day). Etc. And hey, if you don’t get to that one thing… literally who cares. Also, if you are feeling overwhelmed, remember – you can now drink (in limited quantities) again – open a beer! It’s Ireland somewhere – and your internal clock is so messed up you’re probably 7 pm on the inside anyway.
5. Don’t worry so much about time. The first few days my type A personality made it almost impossible to relax, no matter when the kid was doing what,because I was constantly going through numbers in my head – what time did she last eat, how long has she been sleeping, when was her last poop, how many wet diapers has she had, how long will I be able to sleep if I fall asleep now before she wakes up again, when exactly did I last poop, how long can I let her sit in that diaper before it’s considered neglect, etc etc. It’s not going to happen immediately, but once you’ve had that amazing pop of clarity that your child is alive and you are actually doing IT, try to let the numbers and times and quantities go a little. Obviously if your minnow is having some troubles doing their thang and docs are worried about growth or whatever, track what you need to track, but for the general public – chill, dude. They are going to do what they are going to do, and by some small miracle, one thing human babies are actually pretty decent at is kinda letting us know that they need some variety of attention via crying and/or screeching. It blows my mind that other species of mammals just get up and trot about and star in Disney Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah videos mere hours after birth, while the most Darwin’d of the bunch can’t even hold their gigantic melon heads up by themselves for months due to having little string bean necks. But for the most part – they are going to give you the ol’ white flag signal if they need some something – so try not to fixate on the numbers or the times or the schedules and stick to the unique clock that came programmed in that little glowworm that popped out of your crotch.
6. BREATHE. And repeat. Whatever it is, whatever you’re feeling, however emotional or irrational or ridiculous, take comfort in the fact that you are not the first person to feel what you’re feeling. What you just went through making and baking and birthing a human is insane. And now you have to keep that little urchin alive – on minimal sleep and wacked out on hormones, oh and also while your body literally continues to leak large quantities of blood/etc from your down there parts (speaking of – resist any urges to peek down there with a mirror, just trust me) and crazy amounts of breast milk from your up there parts – and – if you’re anything like me – huge, unpredictable, massive bursts of tears from your way up there parts whenever you feel happy, sad, blessed, stressed, warm, fuzzy, poopy, etc. Remember to breathe… because it may not seem likely in the middle of the 3rd blow-out outfit blasting poopstorm in one hour, and may feel pretty impossible in the midst of a two-hour long hysterically crying, frantic, clawing at your breasts “I 100% forgot how to latch and now am panicked you’ve stopped feeding me” type scenario like our home is prone to… but I have a pretty solid feeling we are so deeply and truly going to miss these moments.

So breathe. And drink a beer. It’s good for milk production.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/daniellecherrick/beers-for-breastfeeding-moms-how-to-increase-your-1k7cp

Do it for your squid. Also their swing doubles as a mighty fine foot rest.