In the zone

This is what I have been waiting for. 

Nine months, or, well, less, of vomiting and back aches and insecurities and vulnerability and no energy and it's all good because it leads me to this. I had a baby less than a week ago. I've packed up all my maternity clothes and put them back on the top shelf of the closet. Sure, I could use a girdle. I am awake and up before my children and dogs and husband and enjoying the private me time that I've needed the last 9 months but had no energy for. All I needed to do was have the baby. It's amazing how quickly I've settled into the old routine--feed baby, get up, pump, drink tea, go online, feed baby. I could barely drag myself out of bed before. And now that I have a newborn, my 3rd, and I'm up every couple of hours at night I find myself with energy and motivation that I forgot existed. Mostly motivation. I won't lie, I'm wicked ass tired by the time dinner time comes and I fell asleep watching Kung Fu Panda last night, but I am motivated in ways I haven't been in a long time. 

Last night the baby, who is in serious need of a nickname for this blog, fed at 12:30 and then not again until 5:10. I don't really want to go over 4 hours at night this soon but she's been pretty good about waking up at night to feed so I figured she knew best. And I did feed her just about every hour before we went to bed. She weighed 5 pounds, 11 ounces at birth. When she came home on Thursday she was 5 pounds, 8 ounces (which was funny because SkyWalker was 5 pounds, 7 ounces when he was born). By Friday she dropped another 3 ounces. I've been waking her and feeding her every 2 hours during the day and at yesterday's weight check she was 5 lbs, 10 oz. I think I'm going to do every 2 hours until she gets to 6 pounds and then we'll get onto the 3-hour routine that I love so much. 

When you first change a low-birthweight baby's diaper you think there's no way you can do this without breaking a bone. It's almost too frightening to attempt. But this is not my first low-birthweight baby and not my smallest either so I was able to skip over that this time and see the benefits. I had SkyWalker first (obviously) so I've always felt that boys are easier to change than girls--sure there's more chance of getting shot with some errant urine, but there are fewer nooks and crannies for the explosive mustard poop to hide in. When I had the Princess it was ridiculous. I declared that girls are ridiculously hard to change. I hereby modify that to say that girls with chunky legs and fat rolls (i.e. normal ones) are hard. The low-birthweight baby girl is wicked easy. She does not have any fat anywhere in her nether regions. There's no poking around looking for the stray poop. 

She's doing well. I'm doing well. The older jedi are doing remarkably well with her. The dogs are behaving. Vader is home for another week or so. It's all good. And with that I am going to attempt a shower before the 7 am wake up call.

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