He's growing up without my permission

He’s a year old, y’all!


So yeah, my itty bitty baby, who was never actually itty or bitty, has turned 1! Where does the time go?? It seems like yesterday I was a terrified new mom on her first day home from the hospital with NO CLUE what I was doing. And now he’s 1, so basically next week he will start shaving and the week after that he’s getting married.

Big Dinosaur keeps asking me when he’s going to start talking, like in full sentences and quoting movies or something. Big Dinosaur is rushing the growing up process, and I don't like it. Baby Dinosaur is good at a few words though, Ba-Ba (bottle), Ya-Ya (Bianca), and Daddy. Yeah, not Da-Da, well sometimes just Da-Da, but usually it’s Daddy.

Baby: Daaaaa-dy, Daddy, Daaaaa-dy.

Me: Say Mama

Baby: Daaaa-ddy? Da-da-da-da-da-da, daaaaaa-ddyyyyy?

Me: No, say Ma-Maa.

Baby: Daddy.

But if he's hurt, sad, sleepy, hungry, it's Ma-Ma all the way, so at least I'm needed sometimes.

Daddy's Boy, all the way

Last night he spent an hour “cruising” around the coffee table (cruising is what babies do when they are using the furniture for support while walking), leading me to believe that any day now he won’t need the table any more, and he will simply walk around the room. We already keep the door to the bathroom closed because of his fascination with touching the toilet water. And don’t get me started with the dog food bowl battles. Mobility is a bitch.

"Ohh, don't mind me, just standing here, reading this Birthday Card."

Around the time he started crawling, I saw on Pinterest that you should keep a cabinet in the kitchen unlocked and filled with baby-safe Tupperware that he can pull out and play with to keep him occupied while your cooking. I thought it was a kick-ass idea, so I set one up. There’s a problem though...we now constantly have Tupperware all over our kitchen and living room and sometimes in our bed, and there’s not a single one that isn’t covered with a layer of dog hair or dust or whatever the hell that is, so that I could, ya know, actually put food in it. Have y'all noticed that Pinterest lies a lot? Pinterest is a bitch.

In the past year we have had to take the baby to the hospital twice. Once for an unexplained incident where he turned blue for no damn reason (they literally said, "Sometimes babies just turn blue." Unacceptable.) and then a 3AM trip to the ER for what turned out to be Croup. If you’ve never seen/heard of Croup, it’s absolutely terrifying. It comes on very quickly and causes a cough which sounds like a seal bark, along with gasping for air and all around can’t breatheingness. So we get to the ER, I’m freaking the hell out, the baby is bawling because he can’t get air, and the nurses are like, “Oh, it’s just Croup, all those kids over there have it too. Here’s some cold juice.” Uhh, come again? What was that? My child can’t breathe and you’re telling me cold apple juice is the answer? Yes, yes that’s right. He just needed to have something cold on his throat. Croup basically just causes airway inflammation, so when cold juice/popsicle/cold air reaches the throat, the inflammation goes down and lets him breathe normally. Oh, and its super common. Croup is a bitch.

Looks cute even in a hospital gown.

I'm still working full time, but luckilly I get to entrust Baby Dinosaur to the single most qualified person in the universe to care for him during the day, my bestie Angel. (You may remeber Angel from The Lizzard) She probably takes better care of him than I do. Seriously. She even threw him a mini birthday party with the other kiddos she watches. This was special because Big Dinosaur and I FORGOT HIS BIRTHDAY. Parent test EPIC FAIL!! See, what had happened was... The Baby's birthday was on a Tuesday, and his massive birthday party was scheduled for the following Saturday. With all my concentration focused on planning the party, when his actually birthday rolled around, we completely overlooked it and treated it like any ol morning. Big Dinosaur got him up and dressed and went off to Angel's. When they arrived, Angel opened the door and said, "There's the Birthday Boy!!" and Big Dinosaur said, "Oh shit...." So he text me and let me know that we were the worlds worst parents and that we forgot our only childs first birthday. Angel and Morgan came to the rescue though, in a big way...

 





It's a PARTY, yo!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

Then, when the baby came home, we begged for his forgivness with more cake.

I think it turned out okay. Fingers crossed we don't forget again next year...

 

Meat Drink

When we moved from our big fancy apartment to this shit-hole apartment, it didn't come with a microwave.  The big fancy apartment had one built in, but apparently people around here prefer heating their leftovers over a campfire. (Side note- Shit-hole apartment kitchen also has no drawers wider than 5 inches. Because who needs a silverware drawer, right?)

No, really.  Our silverware tray sits in the cabinet just below the cups.

At first we like, "Oh well, we'll just buy one, no biggie." But then we didn't, and before we knew it there was no counter space to put a microwave on so we figured we could just live without one. People lived without microwaves for hundreds of years, right? I mean, housewives in the 50s made 5 course meals with nothing but a butter knife and a hand mixer, right?

Well sure, but you know what else they didn't have back then? Dietary staples like microwave popcorn, mini sausage breakfast biscuits and hot pockets. Sure, some of those things can be cooked in the oven, but I don't usually have the extra 17 hours that it takes to bake them.

Ok fine, we can live without these things, but for the love of God WHY CAN'T I QUIT BUYING THEM?!?!!? It's seem that every time I go to the grocery store I completely forget that we don't have a microwave and I buy all these damn frozen dinners and shit just so they can sit in the freezer and taunt me. When we finally do get a microwave again, I believe I'm going to make a smorgasbord of Hot Pockets and Popcorn and eat myself into a radioactive food coma.

Another dilemma we face with no microwave is the process of defrosting meat.  Which, of course, isn't a problem if you have your shit together and can remember to put your dinner meat in the refrigerator the night before. I do not have my shit together, so  I come home from work and dig the dinner meat out of the frozen, frosty depths and plunk it into a sink full of hot water.  Takes a little longer than the microwave method, but it works. Then, the other day, Big Dinosaur drank the meat water.

It was a normal day, I ran a sink of hot water on the left side to was a few dishes, then one on the right side to begin defrosting the meat. Only, the sink stopper wouldn't stop up the sink on the right side, so I gave Big Dinosaur the task of finding something to stop it up while I changed the baby. When I cam back to the kitchen, he had sucessflly stopped up the sink with a small plastic cup. Perfect.

We went on about our day, waiting for the meat to defrost, and when it was done I pulled the cup out of the drain and set it beside the sink. I made dinner, we ate, we sat in the living room. I was playing with the baby when I look over to see Big Dinosaur finishing off a drink....I recognized that cup.

Cat: Isn't that the cup you used to plug the drain for the meat?

Joe: I don't think so....IS IT?? This one was sitting BESIDE the sink.

Cat: Uhhh, yeah!! That's where I put the meat cup! You know, on the side of the sink? Where we put the DIRTY dishes?!?

Joe: Oh groose!! I drank the meat water!!!

Cat: *uncontrolable laughing* YOU DRANK THE MEAT WATER!!!!!

Joe: *gagging noises*

As hilarious as this was to me, it was equally un-hilarious to Big Dinosaur who was very concerned about consuming raw beef juice. So the next day I sent hm a text to check on him. "How ya feelin' Meat Drink?" He was fine. Not amused, and fine.

At least it wasn't chicken.

Beef Bacteria. YUM!

Now I know...

There are many things you learn when you become a mom, some basic things like how often babies like to be fed and how to swaddle them tightly so they wont cry; but then there are some things you learn that surprise you.  This post is about those things.

I’ve always been a coupon cutter, but before I was a mom it baffled me why there were so many coupons for batteries.  Who is buying all these batteries and what are they using them for?!  Why can’t there be more coupons for toilet paper instead??  Now I know…."WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE BATTERIES?!?!?!?  I swear I JUST bought some!!!  No, not that size, we need Quadruple G sized batteries.  Why the hell are batteries so damned expensive?!?! What do you mean the swing is already losing power?!  AAAHHHHHHhhhhhhhh!!"

Before I was a mom, cleaning soggy food out of casserole dishes made me gag and nearly toss my cookies.  One of the first things I worried about when I found out I was pregnant was how I was going to handle getting peed, puked and pooped on.  Now I know….Sometimes laundry doesn’t get done for awhile, you dig through the pile, find the t-shirt with the least amount of spit-up on it and you carry on with your day.   When you get pooped on, you wash your hands, change out of your shirt and make a mental note NOT to pick that one back out of the pile to wear again tomorrow. 

I love sleeping; always have.  When I was little I would ask to go to bed hours before my bedtime and I would sleep in well past Saturday Morning Cartoons.  I worried that being woken up multiple times in the middle of the night wouldn’t fly well with me.  I worried that I would get frustrated and angry about not getting my beauty sleep.  Now I know…when that little noise wakes you up, it’s not anger you feel, it’s a split second of worry, and then you relax a little when you realize it’s a coo, not a cry.  And as soon as you stick your head over the bassinet and see the tiny, toothless, grinning person holding his feet and rocking side to side, there is no other feeling than pure joy.  Period.

We Had a Baby!

9 months.  Why do they call it 9 months? It's not you know...it's 40 weeks.  Closer to 10 months really and since I didn't know for the first 8 weeks....and I was induced one week early...maaath is haaard....31 weeks.  That's how long I had been waiting for this day.  Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

I had been on "bed rest" for 2 weeks.  My stupid blood pressure was high and not going down so my doctor decided to induce my labor on Monday, March 5th.  Like I've said before, knowing when your going to have baby is like someone saying, "Hey, come to the hospital on this day.  We're going to put you through immeasurable pain then give you an amazing gift.  It'll be fun!"  Great.  Let's do it.

We had to show up the evening before and I wasn't going to be allowed to eat anything until after I delivered, so we met up with some of our closest friends at my favorite restaurant and I gorged myself until I could hardly waddle out of the place.

When we got to the hospital and were checking in, I could hear women moaning up and down the hallway.  Such a reassuring sound.  Pain.

The hospital staff was super friendly and seeing as how I have never been admitted to the hospital for anything in my life other than my own birth, you could say I was a little nervous.  Late that evening they started my on the first medication and gave me my first ever IV.  When I asked the nurse what I should expect from this med, she said "Well, it's supposed to soften and thin out your cervix to make it easier for you to dilate.  Honestly I've seen it throw women into full-blown labor within the hour...and I've seen it do nothing at all....so who knows."  Great! That's super helpful.

That first night was long.  All the nurses kept saying, "Try to get some sleep, you'll need your strength tomorrow."  Again, very reassuring.  That's exactly what will get me to fall asleep!  Remind me that I will be in a battle with my vagina tomorrow.  Thanks!!  I missed my dog.  It's bullshit that you can't bring your dog to the hospital with you.  I think it would help a lot of people recover a hell of a lot faster if they could cuddle with their best friend.  Joe couldn't sleep.  The chair-that-folds-into-the-squeakiest-bed-in-the-unvierse wasn't too comfortable. 

Finally around 7 AM they started the Pitocin drip.  Alright!  Let's get this party started!  Around 10 AM my doctor came in with the worlds largest crochet hook and broke my water.  Yeah, it was dramatic.  I let the contractions roll until about Noon then decided it was time for drugs.  Gloooorious drugs!

My anesthesiologist was a rock star and was easily able to painlessly insert the huge ass needle into my back delivering the goods.  Sweet, sweet leg numbness.  Honestly, from the horror stories I had heard, I was more nervous about the epidural than labor itself.  Yeah, I had that all kinds of wrong.

By this time both mine and Joe's immediate families were there.  I progressed annoyingly slow but since I wasn't feeling any pain I just sat and read.  I was about half way through "The Book Thief" when I started feeling some contractions again. It was about 6 PM and the nurse had just let me know I was only at 6 centimeters dilated. Then the contractions got worse...and worse...and HOLY SHIT BALLS BATMAN THAT HURTS.  What the hell??! I have drugs!  I shouldn't be feeling like this...what the hell?!?  I kept pushing the little drug button, but the pain wasn't going away.  My mom and Joe's mom (who both kept reminding me that they had had their children naturally) kept telling me to breathe through it.  I didn't want to breathe through it, damnit!  I didn't want to feel it!

Around 7 PM the nurse came back in and said, "Oh....are you feeling contractions?"  Uh yeah bitch "Yessssss."  "On a scale of 1-10, how bad is the pain?" Mother-fucking 10 bitch! "Ummmm....at least a 7 or 8?!"  "Oh wow, you shouldn't be hurting like that."  And she called the anesthesiologist back in and he shot me with another huge dose of drugs.  It helped a little, not a lot.  The nurse then let me know that I had progressed from 6 cm to 10 cm in the past hour and it was about to be time to push.

It took 15 hours for me to get from 1 cm to 6 cm.....and 1 hour to go from 6 cm to 10 cm.  No wonder the epidural couldn't keep up!  When the nurse told me I was at 10, I burst into tears.  I think it was a combination of pent up nerves, pain, and relief that it was finally time.  I pulled myself together and got ready then the nurse let me know that I may have to push for 2 hours or more. (Just full of helpful information, wasn't she?) Fuck that.  I looked at the clock, it was 8:25 PM.  I made my mind  up that minute that this baby would be out within the hour.

For the first 30 minutes of pushing, my doctor wasn't even there.  Joe was awesome, he kept a cold rag on my head when I wanted it and fed me ice.  He constantly told me how well I was doing.  I threw up from the effort of pushing and he handled it like a champ.  At one point I thought I was going to black out but I made myself stay awake.  I knew it would take longer if I passed out.

The doctor showed up, I pushed.  They got everything ready, I pushed.  I will never in my life forget the feeling of that last push.  He was here.  I sobbed with relief and joy, they put him on my chest.  He was wide awake and he just stared at me.  He was the most beautiful thing I had seen in my life, I was instantly madly in love.

The nurses took him off my chest and put him on the baby table.  He still wasn't crying.  He's supposed to be crying.  Why wasn't he crying?  The nurses were vigorously rubbing him all over, smacking him on the bottom of his feet.  He just looked at them like, "What the hell?!?!  Leave me alone!"  His color was great, nice and pink.  They called in the NICU team because he wasn't crying.  I was terrified.  My doctor kept telling me he was okay but I was still terrified.  The NICU team started laughing at the looks they were getting from the baby.  That's when I knew he was okay.  He just didn't want to cry.  And that's fine.

He was perfect in every single way, 8lbs 2oz and 21 inches long, born at 9:32 PM on Monday, March 5th.  We had to stay in the hospital until that Wednesday and we went home.

Now, I have a happy, healthy 7 week old baby boy, Joe Ben Bailey IV.  He is the light of my life and I would do anything in the world for him.  It's been an interesting 7 weeks, not a lot of sleep, but I'll talk more about our adventures in some next posts.  For now, we would like to introduce you to our baby.  Enjoy!

 

Big Dinosaur with Baby Dinosaur

"No pictures, please."

"Raaaawwwrrrr!!!"

"Welcome to the Gun Show"