I always knew that once I became a mother, I would add new things to my skill set, but "What to Expect when You're Expecting" - while informative - can't possibly cover it all. The following is just a short list of the things I've learned how to do in the past two months:
1. How to shop for the entire week's groceries in ten minutes or less
2. How to prepare bottles, brush your teeth, surf the internet, fold laundry, cook dinner, and more with only one arm
3. How to appreciate the fact that any number of baby bodily-liquids ended up on your shirt, your pants, your hands, even your face (!) but NOT your mouth
4. How to survive on surprisingly little caffeine when you're sleep-deprived but breastfeeding/pumping doesn't allow the triple-mochaccino with extra whipped cream and cocaine that it would take to make you even semi-alert
5. How to laugh when all you want to do is cry - this one is EXTREMELY handy come 5pm when the baby needs to cry out some of the day's stress, you know your husband isn't coming home for at least 2 hours, and you realize at least ONE of you (you or the baby, not your husband, he's living it up on the train ride home) needs to maintain composure
My favorite - or at least most proud - how-to that I've learned thus far happened this past Sunday, in the wee hours of the morning (by the way, a time of day I've come to know well since Ella is sleeping like a champ but makes so much noise that I can't). Yes, how not only to take her temperature rectally but how to do it without even waking her up. (And no, I'm not for hire for any number of strange jobs - alien anal-prober at the top of the list)
Anyways, they always warn you that after vaccinations, babies can get a fever, have diarrhea, and/or be fussy for a day or two. Alternatively, they can just fall asleep. Ella chose the latter reaction the day of the vaccinations and seemed to have passed the whole experience without incident. Or so we thought . . .
Saturday, I discovered she had a mild fever, and I was instructed to give her some Tylenol and just check her overnight to make sure she didn't have a fever. So, intent on protecting my young from danger with the determination of a mother lioness, I set my alarm for 1 am and went to sleep (very lioness-like indeed). When 1am rolled around, I got up quietly and felt Ella's head as lightly as I could, so I wouldn't wake her up. As everyone knows, babies don't need any more encouragement to wake up in the middle of the night. They are quite happy to be wide awake - eating, pooping, playing, cooing, gurgling, or crying - when the rest of the world is sleeping soundly. That is, the rest of the world except their parents.
She felt fine, but I decided to take her temperature just in case. So, I picked her up with the light hand of someone defusing an explosive and carefully laid her on her changing table. This would be an excellent time to discuss the merit of baby pajamas that do NOT have 473 buttons, but unfortunately for me, that very night we had dressed her in an outfit with about 474 . . . And then I had to open the onesie under this outfit, not to mention the loud "squuuaaatch" sound of me opening her diaper.
Ella, meanwhile, was sleeping soundly (so was her father, for that matter, a mere 2 feet away). Without going into too much detail, her temperature was checked, her diaper was closed, and I was able to put her - sound asleep - back to bed without incident.
When she woke up at 4am to eat, Nadav found her clothes open, legs splayed, under her covers - the only evidence of our nightly adventure. I told him in the morning that I could now proudly boast of my new skill - taking rectal temperatures without waking the recipients. With a somewhat worried expression, he looked at me and said, "I just hope you're not doing that to ME at night."
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