Being Sara

I have been pondering this question for a while now.  Zach and I have always planned to have more than one child.  Of course with the first, everything is new and exciting, and perhaps we go a little bit overboard when it comes to recording the first months/years of Xander’s life.  My concern is that I don’t want the second child to feel like we didn’t document as much, but will I have the time/energy/interest in maintaining everything for baby #2?  First and foremost, I’ve got this blog, which I think is an excellent way to store thoughts and feelings about the entire process, from conception through graduation.  I’ve also got a baby book, a scrapbook, a hallmark calendar to mark all of Xander’s “firsts” (first smile, first trip, first tooth, etc.), a plaster mold of Xander’s hands and feet, and over 100 digital pictures of him in our Flickr account.

Lately I’ve been so busy with holiday preparation, family time, housework, etc., that I haven’t picked up the scrapbook or baby book in over a month.  Not to mention that the calendar has been sorely neglected.  And do we have too many pictures of the little guy?  Will he grow up and be irritated that there are dozens of pictures from almost every week of his life?  Will he wish that we hadn’t let all of our friends and family see all of the silly things we did, from the baby mowhawk to sitting him in a pumpkin…  In this digital era, I don’t think we have any printed photographs of our son, aside from the professional ones taken at the hospital.  How many pictures are too many?  How many scrapbooks or baby books are too many?  Will I have the energy to maintain an equal amount of documentation for future children?  With everything there is to worry about with my current child, why am I wasting worry energy on potential children?  Wow, it’s pretty easy to spend a lot of a day worrying!

baby, babies, infant, infants, baby pictures, scrapbook, baby books, baby documentation

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Before Xander was born I heard all kinds of warnings about how difficult babies are, and how hard the first few weeks/months can be.  I even wrote a post about this trend.  When Xander arrived, I was prepared for the worst – minutes of sleep every night, crazy hormones/baby blues, never having time for a shower or a meal, etc.

So, we were pleasantly surprised when Xander wasn’t that difficult.  He cries when he needs something, but when his need is met, he stops fussing.  At first, this was a game of elimination – are you wet? No, are you tired? No, are you hungry? Yep!  We are getting better a figuring out what he wants, and since he put himself on about a 3-4 hour feeding schedule, we generally have a pretty good idea of when he’ll want to eat. Even when we introduced bottles to Xander, he was amazingly easy.  The first attempt was successful, and since then, he has never questioned any nipple style, or even the temperature of the milk or formula that we’ve fed him.  This makes traveling with him much easier, since we can bring along some formula in a bottle, add water when he’s hungry, and keep going without having to find a quiet place and an extra 30-40 minutes to nurse him.
Don’t get me wrong – some days were pretty tough.  Some nights he just wasn’t interested in sleeping, and even though he was clearly hungry, he was crying too hard to latch onto my breast.  We definitely had our challenges, but the good stuff has far outweighed the hard stuff.

Last night Xander again proved that he is indeed an easy baby.  Let me start by explaining that the day we brought Xander home, we had our bedroom set up with a bassinet for him to sleep in.  When it was time for us to go to sleep, we set him down in the bassinet, and assumed that he would go to sleep, or at least lay there quietly.  Boy were we wrong.  So, that first night, we built him a little nest in our bed for him to sleep in without getting smothered by us or by bedding.  We tried the bassinet a few more nights with the same result, and eventually gave up and let him sleep with us full time.  During the day he will sometimes nap in his car seat, but we found if we let him sleep in his car seat at night, he would only sleep for an hour or two at a time, while if he slept with us, we could get in 4-5 hours of sleep at a stretch.  Despite this “accidental parenting” that we had started, we still wanted Xander to sleep in his own space.  I began to stress about the negative impact we were having on Xander, and wondering how we were ever going to convince him to sleep on his own – particularly when both Zach and I were back at work.   Since I was worrying about this too much, I decided to let this be Zach’s project, since he would have 6 weeks to change the sleeping arrangements.  Last night was the first attempt.  Zach and Xander fell asleep on the couch around 9pm.  I did a little housework, prepped the bassinet in the nursery for Zach and turned in around 10pm.  About midnight, Xander woke up.  Zach fed him, and put him in the bassinet, where Xander slept peacefully for 4 hours!  I nursed Xander at 4pm, and then Zach put him back in the bassinet, where he was still sleeping peacefully when I left the house at 7:30am.  I was so worried that the change in sleeping arrangement would be an uphill battle for us, filled with many sleepless, crying nights.  Xander proved me wrong by simply accepting this new arrangement without complaint, and sleeping more peacefully than I could have hoped for.  At this rate, he will hopefully be sleeping through the night in a month or two!

Another thought that crossed my mind this morning as I was marveling at how lucky we’ve been so far.  A lot of times you’ll hear people say that if you have a difficult first child, your second one will be easy and vice versa.  Since Xander is clearly an easy baby, it makes me nervous about what his future sibling will be like.  I know it’s just an old wives tale, but still…

babies, baby, difficult baby, easy baby, infant, infants, motherhood, parenthood, parenting, parenting challenges, sleep, sleeping

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There are so many things about Xander’s life that I want to remember, and not forget as he gets older.  I want to remember how happy I felt when sitting in the rocking chair with him on a sunny day, just rocking and relaxing.  I want to remember his “Wallace hands” – when he starts to get excited or upset he curls his fingers and wiggles his hands back and forth, palms up – an excellent rendition of Wallace from Wallace & Gromit.  Even though it’s usually a precursor to a very loud wail, we love the Wallace hands.  I also want to remember his Pinky and the Brain sleeping pose.  On multiple occasions Xander has fallen asleep with his index finger poised on his chin (see the picture).  Whenever he falls asleep like this, we say “Are you pondering what I’m pondering Pinky?”  A classic line from this entertaining cartoon.  I don’t know why we name his cute actions after cartoon characters, but it seems fitting.  Best of all is his sleepy smile.  Whenever he’s drifting off to sleep, whether he’s got a pacifier in his mouth, he’s nursing, or simply lying down somewhere, he gets this blissful little smile on his face for just the briefest moment.  If you’re paying attention you can catch this adorable little smile, and that look on his face says that at that moment, he is entirely content with his world – it’s such a wonderful look.  So, those are currently the things that I don’t want to forget.  I’m sure there are more, and I’ll do my best to record them here so that 20 years from now I (and hopefully Xander) can look back on them with fondness.

baby, babies, infant, infants, growth, development, memories, favorite moments

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When I step back and look at where we are at in our lives – new baby, house, steady jobs, etc. I can see that Zach and I are full blown adults with all the responsibility that comes in that package. As I look around at our friends, I realized with a little surprise that we are not the only ones in this boat. Several of our friends are now in similar spots with their own mortgages, expanding families, and responsibilities coming out their ears.  In my head, I’m still a recent college graduate, in regular contact with many of my college friends and we are all still in that relaxed college mindset.

So, it’s kind of a shock to remember that I graduated almost 5 years ago, and that almost all of my friends did as well, and that we are no longer drinking until the wee hours of the morning most weekends – we’re going to bed earlier, and getting up on Saturdays to go to the dump or go grocery shopping.  And, instead of sleeping in, we’re up early with the baby, and perhaps the most scary thing, it seems normal to get up earlier on a Saturday, and I’m not that tired.  I think it’s the difference in sleep patterns that makes me feel old the most.  I’m not going to sleep at 8pm yet, but by 10pm I’m ready to find my bed and perhaps read for a little while before I sleep (well, nurse the baby these days…)  and if I get up at 7am or 8am, I feel refreshed, and if I sleep past 10am I feel like I’ve wasted my day.  It’s kind of a weird feeling to see yourself settling into patterns that you remember your parents having when you were a kid, and it makes me miss that carefree feeling I had as a child with a whole day of possibilities in front of me.  I hope that we can give Xander that carefree feeling for as long as possible…

baby, babies, parents, parenting, infant, infants, development, growth

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Our little family has been adjusting quite nicely, I think.  We have our routines down fairly well, and Zach and I are able to handle most of the situations that arise with the little guy so far.  I’ve been enjoying my maternity leave, but lately I’m wanting more.  I understand this infant phase now, and I’m ready for some new developmental milestones.  Xander seems to be right on target for his age – learning and growing just as he is supposed to.  Since patience has never been a virtue of mine, I’m ready for him to start doing more things – I’m ready for him to take an interest in toys, or sit up, or start laughing at us when we make funny faces at him.

I think part of me wants to cram as much learning at I can in  before he gets to day care.  I’m worried that he won’t get much one-on-one time at day care, and thus, won’t receive the same time and effort that a parent might put into teaching their child.
Another part of me sees that we have a good routine, that I can set him down for a morning and afternoon nap for at least 2 hours at a time, and get things done around the house, but when the laundry is drying and the dishwasher is going, and the house is mostly clean, I look at that sleeping boy and start to wish that he would wake up so that we can play.  Of course, “play” is a relative term, since his play right now consists mostly of staring, stiffening his legs (he loves to “stand”) and sometimes smiling.

I am just so excited to see what will develop next, I can hardly wait.  I was thrilled when he started smiling and What to Expect The First Year (the “manual”) says that in the next month or two we can expect Xander to start laughing – and I’m so excited for that, and for all of his developmental milestones.  On the other hand, I want to enjoy the time that I have, because I know that the blink of an eye, he’ll be 10 and I’ll yearn for these infant days again, so I don’t want to waste time thinking about the future, and not enjoying the present.  Hopefully, I’ll find a good balance between my excitement for new developments with appreciation for the present…

baby, infant, baby development, infant development, what to expect the first year, developmental stages, parenting

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