Lessons Learned

First off... Emma rolled over for the first time all by herself! We've been diligently working on getting this kid to roll over for about a month-ish now and she finally decided to do it on her own. She did it for the first time last night (2/16) but only once, and it was mostly an accident. Hubby woke up when she got up this morning and I laid in bed for another hour, and when I got up, he happily announced that she rolled over all by herself not once, but twice. Twice! And then she proceeded to do it all day long like she's been doing it for weeks now. That's the thing about babies- once they learn something, they master it quickly. She still hasn't rolled from back to tummy by herself, but I think that's mostly because she has zero desire to do so. At least when she's on her tummy, she's motivated to flip onto her back (she still hates being on her tummy). She can roll herself onto her side from her back with no problem, but she's way too smart to keep going.

The funny thing is, she extends one arm up and behind her to start the rolling motion, but she thinks that same motion can get her out of any position she's in- she was sitting on hubby's lap tonight and she kept trying to reach back with her arm as if she could roll herself into a different position from sitting. Silly baby. She at least thinks it's fun to flip over onto her back. Let's hope she doesn't think it's even more fun to flip from back to tummy, or else diaper changes will be pretty dramatic.

Speaking of dramatic diaper changes...

(If baby poop grosses you out, skip to the next topic. And make sure you have good birth control, because babies= lots of baby poop)

So hubby and I are buying another house in three weeks and it's looking like the loan will go through. So we decided to take advantage of the fact that President's Day somehow correlates with appliance sales. Yep... George Washington, washer/dryer deals, it all makes sense. Anyways. We went to our local HH Gregg and shortly after getting there, I realized Baby Bird smelled like a dumpster but I thought we wouldn't be long and I could change her in the car. But when we found ourselves about to purchase three major appliances, I decided to brave the store bathroom and change her in there. It was pretty much a closet with two stalls and a sink. I got everything set up, put the baby on the changing table, popped open the diaper and said "that's not too bad!" Then I realized... it was a blow out. Straight up and out the top of her diaper in the back... the worst kind of blowout. Oh, and did I mention that before I even opened up her diaper, she kicked the travel wipes container off the changing table, causing two wipes to land directly on the floor? Yea, that happened. So I threw those two wipes away. Now, back to the blowout... it took me about 0.1634 seconds to realize that an out-the-back-of-the-diaper blowout means a poopy onesie and I tried to remain as calm as I could. That is, until I realized that I had two remaining wipes in the container. Two. Wipes. And a poopy onesie. In a closet-sized bathroom that now had both stalls occupied- one with a little old lady, and one with a preschooler and her mother. And here I was, with a now-crying baby, no wipes, a poopy onesie, and a poopy changing pad. Oh, and poop on my hands. Poop poop poop. I somehow made it work and tried to get her as clean as I could with what I had available, although I made a horrible judgment call and pulled the poopy onesie over her head instead of pulling it down. And trust me, there were flashes of temptation of just putting my poop-covered infant in the sink and rinsing her off in it. But there were too many reasons not to do so. We both made it out alive and she got a very soapy bath at home... she's definitely clean now.

My next mistake (more poop talk... skip to the next paragraph if you must) was trying to wash said onesie in the sink at home. I sprayed the hell out of it with some Spray-n-Wash and did my best to get as much poop off of it before tossing it in the washer. So that was my first poopy onesie wash- the others have just been thrown away in the past or tossed into the washer because sometimes I'm an awesome mom like that. Now I really can't wait for my fancy-shmancy new washer with a sanitize feature and my steam dryer that kills 99.9% of germs. And I'm certainly no germophobe... but poop is seriously gross.

So if that wasn't enough, my dear little Baby Bird had to vomit sweet potatoes on me before her bath. And all over her white Pottery Barn towel that has her name embroidered on it. So now both of those towels are stained :( And then she pooped again. Emma- 8982745098136 Mommy- 0

We're horribly understaffed at work right now and I ended up working 46.5 hours last week... add in the travel time for dropping off/picking up the baby and it's amazing I had time to breathe at all. I assume that this coming week will be just as nuts. And we're moving.

My saving grace has been that Emma has slept for twelve consecutive hours for the past few nights. She's been in bed at 8, which seems to be her new preferred bed time, and wakes up at 8 the next morning. I couldn't ask for anything more. Well... it would be nice if bedtime didn't usually involve a whole lot of fussing and kicking with some crying peppered in. She kind of hates bed time now and I don't know why. Tonight was the exception- she drifted off to sleep in my arms and I plopped her in her crib and she fell right back to sleep. But I assume that means she'll be up in the middle of the night for a bottle- I'm a mom. I can't have my cake and eat it too when it comes to a seven-month-old baby.

Here are some of the rookie-mom things I've learned in the last seven months, in list format: (experienced moms will be nodding their heads and laughing at this. New moms and moms-to-be: take notes!)

1. Don't assume you have enough wipes when you leave the house.
2. Don't assume you won't need a change of clothes for the baby when you leave the house (I neglected to put a long-sleeved onesie in the diaper bag today because I didn't think I'd need to change her outfit. So I had to put her in a short-sleeved onesie on the coldest day of the season so far. Yep, Mom-of-the-year. Right here.)
3. Don't compare your child to other children. Just don't. Emma is delayed on milestones for her actual age, and sometimes I forget that she's a preemie and it's totally normal for her to be meeting her milestones the way she is. As long as your kid is making progress and moving forward, who cares when he/she rolls for the first time or starts babbling? Enjoy that baby. Forget everyone else.
4. Take lots of pictures and videos. And darnit, post them on Facebook- just don't post eighteen pictures of your child eating crackers.
5. Spend money on good wipes. I just bought a pack of more than 200 Huggies wipes that are the equivalent of wiping my child's bottom with a slightly-damp piece of printer paper.
6. When buying baby clothes as a gift for a friend, consider the size and season. Emma has a LOT of summer clothes in a 9 month size that she'll never wear because she'll be too big for them by the time it's warm enough. She also has a good amount of winter clothes in a 12 month size that she'll never wear for the opposite reason- it'll be too warm by the time she's big enough to wear them.
7. Bath poop is inevitable. Prepare yourself.
8. Don't listen to every single person who wants to tell you in a condescending fashion how to be a mom or what to do in every little situation. Feel free to figure stuff out on your own... the mistakes make for good stories sometimes (like today's fiasco), provided that everyone makes it out alive.
9. Make an effort to use carpet cleaner when the baby projectile vomits and soaks the carpet at 3am. Just soaking it up with a towel doesn't always suffice, and it's never a good feeling to find a crusty stain on the carpet the next morning. Formula vomit isn't always white.
10. Skip the doorway jumper.

I really do think my blog entries are going to dwindle for a bit due to this move. But we'll see- I tend to procrastinate and find lots of other things to do when there's a big task at hand that I'd like to avoid. Like packing up my whole house. Bleh. And once we settle in, I'm going to try to start crafting and sewing because I'll finally have a reason to- I have an additional 1000 square feet of house to decorate. Holy moly. So, I'm crazy busy at work, moving, and juggling new parenthood. If I make it through these next few months without having a nervous breakdown, I'm pretty sure I can take on the world ;)