Two is Not Enough

Before (Baby), I would always obviously thoroughly enjoy three-day weekends - who doesn't? I'd enjoy the extra day of sleeping in and hanging around doing nothing.

Now, I strongly believe all weekends should be three-day weekends. How are we ever going to get caught up and get stuff done? This is how I see it:
Day 1 - do housework - cleaning, laundry, straightening up, pay bills, ironing
Day 2 - do all the random things you can't get done during the week - return those pants to the store, shop for new bedspread, do yard work, figure out what's the smell in the laundry room, cook up meals for the week (because the thought of coming home at 6pm to take care of baby and cook dinner makes me crazy).
Day 3 - go to Mass, spend it with the family and relax

How do people manage keeping sane with only 2-day weekends? It is (all jokes aside) not enough. I need to figure something out...

Here's a picture of baby being crazy:

Father's Day #1

He never lost hope that one day we would be parents... here we are minutes away from embarking this adventure:

I'm glad one of us was certain that we would get to celebrate holidays like Father's Day and Mother's Day.

Since the day we found out we were expecting a baby, he has been an unbelievable father. Making sure I got enough rest, that I didn't stress over trivial things and of course that I eat well (by making me fruit smoothies until I gained an unbelievable amount of weight in the beginning, then we had to reroute our pregnancy diet...). He joined me for every doctor appointment... even the ones every week at the end.

I get overwhelmed with gratefulness when I see him interacting and taking care of Benjamin. I love watching him in action!

He gives him baths:

Makes sure he takes his medicine and vitamins every day:

And most favorite of all, gives him his bottle!

I couldn't imagine this journey of parenthood without him by my side. We aren't even 3 months into it and my gut feeling that he was going to be the perfect dad has already been confirmed!

Thank you Love for your patience, understanding, hard work and dedication. Thank you for being Benjamin's Daddy Norm.

Baptized!

Benjamin was baptized this past Thursday by Pablo back home in Augusta. We had an intimate ceremony surrounded by family and close friends. Afterwards, we had a delicious meal at my mom's house!

Outfit with tiny shoes and all

Godparents dressing the baby

Little Angel

Proud Uncle!

Melissa and Bobby were able to join us for the occasion! They drove from SC for the evening!

Getting ready for toasts!

The Godfather had a very powerful toast that had everyone borderline of tears:

All the delicious food!

 Nice picture with the creeper photo bomber in the back...

Norm looks like he is having way too much fun. Juan is uncertain about the situation:

The following day was Ellie's baptism - Ellie is Natasha's little girl, Natasha was Benjamin's godmother. Norm and I were the godparents. So you'll notice the same faces in different roles! Except for the priest... he has the same face in the same role.

More pictures by following this link.

Last Week

I cannot believe this is my last week on maternity leave... this is the last week I get to spend every moment of every day with Baby. This is the last week I am solely devoted to making sure he is eating well, taking his vitamins and napping when he starts rubbing his eyes. This is the last week I get to hold him and not worry about where I have to be at what time.

This is also the last week I get to walk around in my house clothes and barefoot all day...

Thankfully my mom is coming to stay with him during the work week for the next couple of months, so the sting of going back to work could be much much worse. It is still not easy, even though I am leaving him in one of the best hands ever who just might love him more than anyone in the world (true story).

Here's a little video of the chatterbox he is becoming!

Starting Him Young

Yesterday was Benjamin's first trip of many to the Your DeKalb Farmers Market! He did so well! Until he realized he was hungry and we had to go out to the car to get him to eat...

Shopping... he bought his mama some delicious Piroulines!

Here he is shopping the produce aisles

I was going to post these on FB, but then I thought about that there's always that one person out there who is going to say something nasty about us taking the baby to the market... I didn't feel like dealing with all that, so I didn't post to FB. Truth is, baby is part of our family and our family shops at the market. Although we do have to be considerate and respectful of what all is is able to take in, etc, our world cannot stop now that baby is here, it just gets modified... Instead of spending all afternoon in Decatur and stopping for a drink here, a bite to eat there, the market later on and then maybe ice cream afterwards, we just go to the market and go home. And that's fine!

Speaking Of Which

I guess it didn't take much to get the courage to go ahead and do this breastfeeding outside my house thing. The key is to #1. wear conducive clothing. #2. look for a spot wherever you are at (in this case, it was in an alcove on the lower level of a lodge Pablo and I were visiting, so less traffic and sort of tucked away). #3. figure out the blanket (I don't have a proper cover) so the baby doesn't suffocate or get restless and finally #4. don't give a crap and just do it.

I once read a quote that said something along the lines of "whoever becomes offended by breastfeeding in public is because they are staring for too long"

Better

"It gets better" they all told me when Benjamin was first born and we had quite rough times. Not that I didn't believe them (most of them being my very close friends, of course I trust and believe them) but I was quite skeptical about "when" it will get better.... in 2023?

Up until today, I had been so nervous to venture outside the house with Baby... But with proper planning and not getting your hopes high on what all is going to be accomplished, we managed to run some errands today.

First I fed him and changed his diaper. Once he was happy, we got in the car. But before leaving the house, I wrapped the Moby Wrap around me (I call it the kangaroo)... this was a suggestion by a friend. She suggested putting the wrap on at the house and driving with it to wherever you are going. That way, when you get there, all you have to do is get baby out of the car seat and put in him in the wrap. GENIUS.

So that's what we did. First stop was Kroger.

This was my view after a few minutes:

I knew the errands I needed (or wanted) to run and I also knew that I had to be back home by his next feeding (less than 2 hours) in order to maintain sanity and everyone's stress levels down.

So we hauled through Kroger and got everything on our list.

Then we went to pick up my eyeglasses. Same thing, kept the wrap on while baby was in the car seat and quickly snuggled him in it when we arrived.

Once that mission was accomplished and baby was still quite tame, I stopped by Chipotle to grab lunch... I do have to say that every restaurant is somewhat fast-foodish that you can do to-go at, should have a drive through. Certainly would make things easier... or make me fat out of convenience. Either one.

Running errands and doing things with baby is not impossible. Just overwhelming at the thought of it until you get over it - either by giving yourself little pep talks or by diving in because you have no other choice.

You say "you did only those 3 things in two hours"... yes, time does fly when you have baby with you. Park in a shady spot. Take baby out of car seat. Put in kangaroo. Walk to store. Then you try to go so fast that you realize that you were in the ground beef section but now you are across the store and have to go back to get the ground beef... have to walk back. Check out. Walk back to car in shady spot. Remove baby from kangaroo. Buckle up in car seat. Drive to the next stop and do it all over again.

Needless to say my good companion, who behaved perfectly (I honestly was anticipating - and mentally prepared for - a meltdown in the produce section), was worn out when we finally headed home.

Now, breastfeeding outside the house... that's a completely different story from a different book that happens to be in a different language. Certainly not ready to tackle all that just yet.

Life with Baby

Well, the last few weeks have been much smoother. Great, you say, how come you haven't been writing on the blog? I've been busy, I say. Doing what, I thought you these past weeks were smoother, as in you had it together, you say....

It's crazy how exhausting taking care of a newborn can be... he is sleeping well (we get one 4-hour stretch at night, usually followed by a 3-hour stretch), so that is nice... but at the end of the day, I am worn out. Just as if I had been at the hotel, dealing with people, moving tables and running up and down the stairs.

But we are getting along... we still have good and bad days with breastfeeding... and still haven't figured out baby wearing... not to mention still trying to wrap our brains around this tiny human and everything he adds to our family...

We have lots of pictures (that I have to figure out how to get out of my phone), because it's impossible to resist the urge of taking lots of pictures. What I have been able to resist is the urge to post all those pictures on FB... I promised when I became pregnant that I was not going to become "that person". And besides, when I do post a picture, it gets 150+ likes, which is overwhelming. I'm already overwhelmed by baby, I don't need additional factors.

Here's a video of him starting to chat!