Old Lady Girl's Night Out

Last night, I went out for drinks and dinner with some girlfriends for a girl's night. It was an old lady girl's night out because, well, we're old ladies. Gone are the days when going out required no advance planning, late nights and late mornings as well as Nacogdoches cab rides where the creepy cab driver knows where we live and where he picked us up last.

What do I mean by that? Well, it was the first time in several months that I did anything like this, and the first time in many more months that I did something like this and had a drink. Also, the time at which I got home and the amount I drank was important because I had to schedule this outing around breast feeding. My friend Ashley drives over an hour to get to work and back, and a late night was not going to work for either of us. So we decided that Girl's Night should end at 8 pm.

8 pm.

It was so much fun. But like most outings I've been on (all three of them) since Charlie was born almost 2 months ago, It's hard to relax. I feel like I need to get in two months worth of girlie conversations, just like I felt like I needed to get in two months worth of dates when Preston and I went out to dinner a few weeks ago. It's impossible to fit all of that in to one night out. My brain filters through conversation ideas and responses faster than my mouth can get them out. I can't include everyone in one conversation, like I love to do, because I can only focus on one person at a time. This is just another area of life where I have consciously let go of any Type A personality tendencies, even if I wasn't aware of them before.

But while I can't be the leader of the conversation right now, at least I made it to the table. and at least I have some good friends that will put up with my craziness while I figure all of this grown up, old lady mom stuff out, even after getting tipsy after drinking only two (grand and amazing) bellinis, declaring a weekly girl's night that we would call Bellini Ba-Thursday instead of, you know, something obvious like the recommended Thirsty Thursday, and dramatically dropping (may also be described and accidental juggling?) my to go box in the parking lot.

What else happened? Well, obviously, I didn't drive home. So when Ashley pulled into my driveway right behind Preston and his parents, in his mom's car, I jumped out and said, "Did you drink too much to drive home, too?" Thankfully, he did not.

Little Funnies

Yeah, my baby's cute.

Last week, my trainer was on vacation in Cancun. I told him that he better make it a fun vacation because it was going to be hard work helping me get rid of this baby belly. Shortly after that conversation, Preston called and said he wanted to pick up Chicken Express on the way home from the golf course. I told him to bring me fried okra and mashed potatoes with gravy. I then ate a fair amount of chocolate chip cookie dough while waiting for him to get home.

While reviewing world history questions from a practice test, Preston asked me about artwork that I might have seen in Paris. My response: I don't know. Let's go get snow cones.

While googling swimwear tips for a postpartum belly, I found the blog Ain't No Mom Jeans. While reading the Blog Ain't No Mom Jeans, I found this blog, which is the funniest stuff I've read in a while. Although, situational comedy that involves new parents and babies is much more funny than it used to be.

I bought mom swimsuits. One pieces. One even looks like a tankini... but it's not. HOLLA. This is a new phase of life, but not quite to the phase where it's okay to purchase the refillable tub of popcorn at the movie theatre.

We have just now started putting decorations on the walls in Charlie's room. And I don't know what these crazy people are on that post images of their perfectly decorated baby rooms that look like they were staged for a spread in Architectural Digest. Where is the crazy tacky mobile? Where is the changing table cover that just got splattered with baby poop that you had to throw on the floor mid diaper change? Where is the pee stain on the wall above the changing table? Where are the five toys you pulled out for play time and never picked up? Where is the bottle with leftover breast milk (a tragedy in it's own right) you forgot in the diaper bag the last time you left the house three days ago? Yeah, those aren't real rooms.

I have two friends that are magical pregnancy unicorns (a phrase from the movie What to Expect, which was really funny situational comedy if you just had a baby).

You might think you don't know the Barney song, but you do. You might think you will never sing the Barney song to your child, but you will catch yourself starting to sing it and wonder, "What's that song from?" Then you will remember and you will smoothly switch songs. You might think there is no way you would ever finish out the Barney song, knowing what it is, but there will come a day when you do this thing. This is also a new phase in life, but still not quite to the refillable popcorn tub phase.

No one told us about parenthood: part 2

1. Now that you have a small amount of energy, you are really excited to do things like... the laundry, make a cup of coffee, water the plants, load the dish washer, pay bills, pet the dog and sort through the 3000 photos you've taken of your baby.
2. Your house has been a cardboard box storage facility for the past two months. Everything comes in cardboard boxes.
3. A well decorated, stylish nursery is no longer important. What is important is this toy and this mobile.
4. The best outfits are the ones with only 3 or 4 snaps at the crotch. This is also true for baby's clothes.
5. You still need more diaper rash cream.
6. You will watch lots of movies - mostly in 30 or 40 minute increments every 3 to 4 hours with the volume on low. And if your partner started the movie with you for the first viewing but isn't awake for subsequent viewings, that's not your problem.
7. Manners while eating are no longer important. You will no longer wait for everyone to be seated before eating. You will go first in the buffet line without encouragement from the host. You will leave your own dinner guests for an hour to breastfeed your child or whip out your breasts in front of them, depending on who they are. You will eat while doing other things. I just ate half a cantaloupe while unloading the dishwasher and making coffee, all things that I was very excited to do.
8. You will still be able to enjoy a relaxing cup of coffee - for a few minutes. Then you will get up to do one little thing and end up doing many things and later in the day, you will find your coffee cup again when the coffee is cold and the milk has curdled. Today, however, I took my coffee with me and we had many adventures - we folded laundry, unloaded the dish washer, cleaned counter tops and toilets and even fed the baby when coffee got cold.
9. It is now acceptable to sit on the bathroom floor at whataburger to change a diaper because there is no changing table thingie in the bathroom. And although baby has a nice mat to lay on that came with the diaper bag, there is not a mat for mommy.
10. When baby has a blowout away from home and it gets on both your clothes, you will remember to clean baby and change his clothes but will forget to clean your own clothes until you get home and realize there's been poop on your dress all afternoon.

Labor day

Preston took notes during the day so I could use them for my blog. But I think the notes themselves are pretty good. Also, I've decided that April 23 is not only Charlie's birthday, but my new Labor Day and will be celebrated as such.

8:30. Katie's belly looks strange, so we made a doctor's appointment.

11:00. Katie has symptoms of preeclampsia (swelling, weight gain, high blood pressure, baby's weight gain), so the doctor sent us to the hospital.

11:30. Katie just got 'hooked up' at the hospital (to the IV and monitors to rate contractions). We are the only patients in Labor and Delivery.

12:00-30. Went home to get stuff. I'm going crazy...

12:45. Katie asked the nurse where the red button was, in case she needed something. The nurse said, "We hate the button. Yall are the only ones here, just ask that button (she pointed to me) to come get us."

1:15. Katie gets up to 70 tocos, the measurement used by the contraction monitor, and asked for the good drugs. (note from Katie - Preston kept talking about tacos. It made me really hungry.)

1:30. Katie gets drugs and now 70 tocos ain't nothing

1:55. Happy drugs make Katie sleepy. Nap time.

2:30. Movie time. Katie watches Hope Floats.

3:30. The doctor arrived and breaks Katie's water.

3:35. After all this time, Katie is only dilated to 2cm

4:00. Katie asks for more IV drugs and a Sonic cheeseburger.

4:30. Katie's parents arrive

4:55. Epidural time

5:10. Epidural is in. That looked like it really sucked. (Note from Katie - complete understatement)

5:40. Katie is feeling much much better. Hopefully we are done with the bad stuff for a while

5:45. The Moms have come to visit. Katie seems happy again.

6:05. Just realized the Rangers game is on espn tonight.

6:30. Still dilated to just 2.5- 3cm

6:45. The nurse tells the moms, "Y'all can go to diner. You have time." Great

7:00. Nurse shift change. She says, "Have a good night and push out that baby."

7:10. Katie watches Maid in Manhattan.

7:30. No change. Wait one more hour.

8:30. Doctor tells us it's c-section time. (Note from Katie - at this point, I was so tired that this didn't bother me).

9:00. The family was told that Katie would have a C section shortly. A few minutes later, a baby was brought into the nursery. Everyone thought it was ours and gathered around the nursery window. But we were still in the room, waiting to go to the operating room.

9:30. (Note from Katie) I don't ever want to talk about C Sections. All I remember is I kept saying, "There's a lot of pressure down low." And the doctors would say, "Yup." 

9:53. Charlie is born!

Things No One Told Us About the First Month of Parenthod

1.  You need more of everything - space, diapers, pacifiers, blankets, towels, wash clothes, clothes, time. Think of something that you need, want or do, and just add more. And you definitely need more diaper rash cream.

2. Everything smells like poop, or wipes, which are used mostly for poop so the smell of wipes starts to remind you of poop. Even your breath smells like poop. The laundry detergent smells like poop. That smell of home when you walk into your house after being gone for a while - it's poop now.

3. You are always tired. When you get that tired, your body scarifies some part of your normal self to stay awake. For me, it is niceness. For Pres, it's listening/paying attention to words.

4. When you're pregnant, all the books remind you that you could wet your pants when you sneeze. If you're breast feeding, no one tells you that not only could you wet your pants when you sneeze, but you can also shoot laser beams of breast milk out of your nipples.

5. You will forget to do the following things for yourself on a regular basis - eat, brush your teeth, bathe, return phone calls, make the coffee, wash your own clothes, change your own sheets and go outside.

6.  Everyone will want and tell you to take a nap, and although you really should take a nap, you really don't want to take a nap.

7. Babies poop a lot. All day long. All the time. Every 10 minutes maybe.

8. the following type of scenario occurs to you regularly and absolutely makes sense: You have to stick your index finger in your baby's mouth to break the suction if you are breast feeding. If you are wearing nail polish, your baby tastes nail polish. So you can't wear nail polish on your index fingers until you stop breast feeding and you should also cut down the nails on your index fingers to the nub so you don't scratch your baby's gums. So it's like the opposite of the cocaine fingernail.

9. People have told me the following: You look tired. You look like a zombie. the color in your cheeks is gone; you look like you are about to cry. (The following was said by strangers) Is this really your photo on your license? Hmm, it's funny how we get older. You're the third pregnant woman I've seen today, hope you don't have to carry that baby through the whole summer. Why did you have to have C Section? I'll watch your baby; you go on up to the counter with your husband to order lunch.

10. Everyone wants to tell you how to do things. But my friend Sarah and I believe that this actually starts when you get engaged and the projectile vomiting of unsolicited opinions just continues throughout the remainder of your life.

11. Spell check matters less.