Mamie turns seven months old today. I never thought this day would come.
See, when she was a few weeks old people kept telling me that "things get better." I heard this all time. I heard it because the first few weeks with a new baby are really hard. They are so hard and no one tells you any of this ahead of time. So you are surprised and angry and freaked out and think that it is only you that is going through this because why don't the books mention any of this? Sleep? The real deprivation kicks in at 3 weeks, just when baby's naps get farcocked and the baby acne starts and when the word "engorge" is the most used word in your household and when you start to think about your old life when you did things like sleep in more than 3 hour spurts and eat and moisturize. Nobody tells you any of that and I wondered why.
But then things change. The baby smiles at you. The baby sleeps a little bit more (not much, but more). Your boobs settle down (waaaay down). And the feeling that you are going to break the baby starts to subside. All of a sudden you have a little creature who starts to know who you are. I had Mamie in the dead of winter and so I didn't get to take her out as often as I wanted but as soon as the temperture hit 32 degrees, I would bundle her up and take her out in the Bjorn. Sure it killed my back -- I laugh at that now because she has turned into a huge baby that barely fits in the Bjorn at all anymore-- but then there was nothing like strolling around 7th Avenue with Mamie in a bunny suit and a hat with ears. I then understood why nobody told you the bad stuff upfront. It's because it changes so rapidly.
And then changes again. The baby starts sleeping through the night, you lose all the weight, down them thar feels normal and then boom, something else happens. For us it was the introduction of solid foods which turned Mamie into Linda Blair, Jr. They don't tell you that either. That your baby will throw up like a college freshman at her first frat party after eating one li'l old bowl of oatmeal. The sleeping through the night? Gone. Clean slate.
But then today, today on her seventh month birthday she eats a whole jar of bananas and looks so happy and accomplished in her full body plastic bib that I know the next time everything changes again it's gonna be just fine