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Saturday, May 22, 2010

A messier kind of normal

When you first have a baby helpful friends and family are constantly popping by with a meal or offering to help with kids or housework. I love these people. They are so generous and helpful. BUT. I think they have their timing wrong.

After 9 months of nesting, our houses are usually fairly tidy, including the medicine cabinet and the junk drawer (which, for some strange reason, biology dictated that we wake up at 2am to scrub and reorganize). We have also had time to plan ahead and the freezer is filled with yummy treats and nutritious meals.

"You must be so exhausted!" they all say, but to be honest, those first few weeks are a bit of a honeymoon unless the baby's birth was in some way extreme. For the first month baby sleeps a lot. They are incapable of rolling over, so they are conveniently tidy and generally adorable. As long as wacky hormones stay in check, things go along swimmingly.

Fast forward several months. The yummy treats are gone. Meals requiring many steps are replaced by sushi from the grocery store. The shiny clean medicine cabinet is now dumped into that junk drawer in a jumble of baby tylenol, safety pins, broken pencils, and several prescriptions that you no longer can tell from one another. And lets not mention the kitchen countertop or the dust bunnies under the beds.
Baby begins to crawl, climb and explore. They get into the laundry, pull toiletpaper off the roll, and knock over the milk. (My little one loves to put things away for me - but sometimes it just isn't very helpful to have someone pulling all of the folded laundry out of the pile and putting it back into the basket. I'm picky, I know.) They learn that they have preferences and learn to assert their will - refusing to get dressed or demanding that they be allowed to climb over the baby gate. Life just isn't as easy.

The newness has worn off in a good way too. Baby is now beginning to sleep on a schedule and a new kind of "normal" is settling in. But this normal is certainly not as clean or organized as the previous normal.
Wouldn't it be nice if the church committee that brings meals to new moms decided to save a few? They could bring those meals to the same moms when they arrive to church 4 (or 14) months later looking as if they forgot to brush their hair. Really - it is a needed ministry.

2 comments:

Doris said...

I love this blog and it is so true. The little ones keep you on your toes and make sure you get your exercise picking up and running around. But look at the photos of that angelic baby with that big beautiful smile and thumb sucking sleeping baby. Certainly SHE doesn't give you a run for your money.

Viktoria said...

Love it! Yes, I would love a lasagna when our baby is 14 month old!!! =) Herb and I enjoy your blog!