6 weeks! WHAT, how did that happen. I still feel like I have no idea what I am doing, so this is slightly alarming that I am halfway through the time allotted by the great United States to get my shit together and get this kid reading, writing, and being judgmental and ignorant on their own enough to survive in America solo. As much as every single day brings me closer to the realization that I in no way have any interest in being a stay at home mom, I am feeling really grateful that I will only be going back to work 3 days a week for the next yet to be decided amount of time in the immediate future. Mainly because – little starfish is having some heinous difficulty figuring out a task that has always come quite easy to me – shutting her eyes and closing her yapper long enough to GO TO SLEEP ALREADY! She gets SOOOO close. Her eyes get all seizury and rolled back, her little piglet squeals quiet to snuffles, her fat little caterpillar body goes limp, and her arms shoot out to her sides like Christ on the cross (for some reason how she prefers to slumber):

And I get all skippy and happy and lay her down in a little blanket cocoon and she will lay there looking so peaceful and crucified and I will be overcome with emotion and love for this amazing little person, and I will close my eyes in memory of when she was just a tiny speck of a minnow inside of me and how she grew into such an incredible farm animal so quickly and…

SONOFABEAVER her eyes will snap open and her little mouth will start popping open and closed like an actual, literal fish and she will start making this evil panting/grunting sound that I have been conditioned to know is her way of signaling to me that she is hungry, and so we will start all over again and I will let her feast off of me, which she will do with the fervor of a thousand rabid ferrets, with so much gusto that she literally has to take breaks to gasp for air because she is gulping so violently, which leads us to our next major obstacle in my happiness – her little spit up problem. Yes, all of this desperate milk gorging means little one eats pretty quickly now – that sleepy nibbling is a thing of the past – but this means that within seconds to minutes of each feast, she blucks up a large amount of whatever meal she just gobbled. Like so much comes up. I’ve tried every counter attack – making her take more breaks while she is eating, feeding her pumped milk through a slow nipple bottle, burping her way more than is necessary, propping her up after eating, holding her all the way up after eating, plugging her with the pacifier when she starts to spit up in the hopes she will just swallow it back down, etc. And none of it is working. Obviously she is getting enough to eat, because she pees every 10 minutes, blows a diaper out every few hours, and is putting on pounds like I usually do this time of year – but I have a feeling that this thriving must be due to quantity and not quality of feeds, because instead of being a satisfied little monster after feeding and passing out or at least just chilling for 2-3 hours afterwards – she is desperately hungry to eat again within an hour of each feed. All day, errrrr day. And night. Now – I am a machine. I can work with this schedule, and I do. I make myself present and available to her greedy little mouth whenever she even hints that she needs me, and I can survive – nay – thrive – on less sleep than I ever imagined possible. But the one thing that is cramping my style is that her little eat, puke, eat, repeat cycle is so fast-paced that I have not been able to get even a small amount of pumped milk put away for her. So this means that even though we have so many awesome people wanting to take her off our paws and watch her for us, they literally can’t, because she would starve to death fairly quickly. Not to mention my poor husband, who is desperate to help out with her but doesn’t have anything to offer her except a clean diaper, a wipe of the vom off her face, and then arms to hand her back to me within a few minutes of their ESPN and chill time. I’m not one to complain, but if I could change one thing about this whole adventure, it’s this. I would love to be able to let other people bond with her, and take care of her, and nourish her. It would be great for her, amazing for them (because she’s so cool), and I might be able to have a little moment to myself, just me and my breast pump, to get some of that vanilla almond milk flavored crap frozen and ready for something in life other than spit back up onto my kid, floor, shirt, face, pants, etc. And I really do mean the vanilla almond milk part. Seriously, it’s delicious. I kinda get her obsession.

Next: Here are some gross things I feel like sharing.

1. Why did I not remember from nursing school that after a woman gives birth she continues to expel blood and also – we will just call it “stuff” – for weeks afterwards? That is a vital piece of information that I wish I hadn’t PBR’d away. Since tampons are a no-no following the vaginal adventure you embarked on, you have to use pads to collect your clumpy grossness, and OMG THEY ARE THE WORST! How can people use them on the regular? You sit in your stuff all day. And FYI if you don’t have minutes to spare and putter about down there shouting hello and passing on well wishes  throughout the day to your lady garden, like say for instance you are suddenly in charge of a small human who demands every second of your attention and hands, and also you now are cursed with the sweats due to hormones and are perpetually damp in all crevices at all times – it can start to smell like a rotting carcass down there pretty darn quickly. FOR WEEKS.
2. Speaking of sweating, dude what the absolute hell. I am a disgusting wet monster. It is so gross and moist. MOIST is the ONLY word that does justice to what I feel. There. I hope you are also now uncomfortable. Here is probably my worst memory of this whole thing to date: It was our first night home with both the baby and the dog, as we had sent the dog to daycare for a few days when she was born. Gates had done a bunch of research about how to get the dog to not kill the baby etc etc and had been spending the day helping redirect the dog with treats and commands when the baby cried/made noises/grouched about, etc, so for a few hours, we had pumped him full of bits of hot dogs and other such delicacies. Well, the witching hour arrived (8 pm) and it was time for us to attempt slumber. At this point the kid hadn’t quite mastered the art of anything really, and did not know how to eat except sort of kind of EH with the nipple shield, so when she woke with her first cries of hunger (8:05 pm) demanding to be fed, I struggled to get the damn shield on, untangle her writhing little inchworm body into proper feeding position, and smush my boob into her mouth in a way I found to be MOST aggressive, but the lactation lady said was cool, and proceed to nourish my crotchfruit. At this stage in the game I also did not have a handle on anything whatsoever, and had forgotten to put the little breast pads in that collect the spewing breastmilk from the teet not being used while feeding, and from both teets when hormones rampage at random in response to things such as your baby’s cry, a baby on TV’s cry, you recollecting a fond childhood memory, you thinking about shelter animals during the holidays, you thinking about ham, etc and cause liquid to spray wild and free. So I had my shirt off and both nipples dripping/spraying milk willy-nilly, the kid in my lap keeping her mouth anywhere and everywhere but near either nipple, and becoming drenched in breastmilk along with my torso, leggings, and our bedding, and as I became frustrated and hormonal, the sweats from hell started, and sweat started literally dripping off me and onto her, and pooling in the pooch of the semblance of the stomach I used to have and in my groin, and then off my hairline and down my neck and back and settling to live in my buttcrack. And THEN the dog, who had shoved himself under the bed, was whining and crying because the baby was whining and crying, and then proceeded to start to let loose the most horrific, wet, WARM, hotdoggy, heinous gas ever to have been known, and the room became so hot, and damp, and swampy, and smelly, and loud, and disgusting, and I just sat there crying and thinking… omg. This is parenthood. This is what we wanted?!     The end. It got better, FYI. And we stopped giving the dog hot dogs.
3. Once when the baby spit up and I did not have a rag handy, I licked spit up off of her chin.
4. Sometimes, after I have the new diaper secured on her, I will spot an errant bit of poop on her leg/stomach/back/wherever, and wipe it off with my finger. I will promptly forget I did this and will not remember until much later when I am deep into a Cheeto snack and have been sucking vigorously on all fingers for 15 or so minutes and will realize I never actually washed my hands after the poop situation.
5. To save time, I have taken to peeing in the shower. While I’m showering. Obviously. Also, in the early days, when I was scared to let her out of my sight, I also peed in the sink in the laundry room in the basement.
6. Sometimes I put her down on the bathroom floor while I am doing a number 2, because I feel weird about wiping whilst holding her. Yet am oddly ok with her laying on the floor next to the toilet.
7. I bite her fingernails down because I am scared to use the clippers. Have debated doing the same with her toenails but have not yet taken that plunge.
8. She once was laying on my chest while I was burping her and she spit up a very large amount down my bra and I could feel it pooling in my cleavage and under my boobs but it was so late and she was finally sleeping so I just left it there. It dried and I wore the same bra the next day.
9. If I don’t have time to bathe her I literally just pat her down with baby wipes. Ditto for myself.

Final thoughts:

• Her little newborn clothes are getting snug and it literally pains me. Not just because she is growing so fast and I miss her being so teeny tiny, etc, but also because that means we have to buy her more crap.
• For all you ladies out there nervous to jump back in the intimacy saddle post-baby – stop it. It’s awesome. Granted, you need to find 3 minutes in there somewhere between feedings and poopings to partake, but I promise it is not scary. But get back on some birth control first, for the love of god do not believe what they say about breastfeeding being birth control. Trust me, you’re going to want a heavier hitter in there than your chest. Every single day my respect for people who have more than one child grows and grows and grows. For those of you out there who are made of tougher stuff than I am and actually desire multiple little ones bopping around – my hat goes off to you. But for everyone else, do not mess around with nature. She is a spiteful witch. And for those of you who are certain they are good with just the one nugget, or definitely do not want any nuggets – come see me ASAP (starting 1/31/2017 or after -when by the grace of all things good and holy I will be back at work) and get an IUD before Trump repeals Obamacare and wrecks havoc on contraceptive access and then the Right sits back and scratches their heads wondering why Medicaid paid birth costs skyrocket at an astronomical rate. If this confuses you, please look at Texas as an example.
• Finally, look how cute she is:

Also –

She’s getting so good with the pacifier!

Literally 30 seconds later:

And the ensuing emotion:

Life is so hard!