Sure do babe - saddle up and get ready for round two of the Pearson blogging extravaganza. We've grown one pound heavier and aged the equivalent of thirty years this last week (well, Katey and I have at least).
It's been an interesting week - I'm not sure if I was fully prepared for how tiring it can be to do close to nothing all day except caring for an infant. The highlight of the week was baby pictures last Tuesday. To preface this, I've always thought a lot of poses people use for baby pictures are a little creepy, especially the obviously unnatural poses like propping the baby's head up with her hands so it looks like she's doing a little Shirley Temple pose. Case in point:
I know moms eat this stuff up, so I begrudgingly agreed to accompany Katey to Lyla's first (certainly not last I've been informed) photo shoot. Firstly, the photographer did a great job, and much to my satisfaction, fashioned her in some generally 'normal' but creative poses. As is the case with most family photo outings with kids, however, you generally spend the lions share of time trying to get everything in the perfect position for enough time to capture the one single moment of tranquility hiding below the surface of reality. I'd say about 5% of the session was spent actually snapping pictures. In a 4 hour photo shoot - you get the idea...pure father torture. In the case of newborn photos, the goal is to try and lull an unpredictable, naked, diaperless baby to sleep in a 90+ degree room, then meticulously put her in cute baby poses. After she inevitably starts peeing, you try your best to catch it before it hits the carpet (silver lining - good thing I was wearing a shirt?). Each pose takes roughly 45 minutes - 1 hour to capture. Yippee...I'm sure I'll be happy that we have these photos someday far into the future when I've had sufficient memory loss to forget the actual process of taking them.
In other news, we ventured to Bridgeport twice this week and the Lake Oswego farmers market today. This is newsworthy because it's about the only things for which we could muster enough energy. Not to mention each individual outing takes roughly 2-3 hours of preparation time:
Feed the baby. Burp the baby. Change the baby. Clothe the baby. Pack for the baby. Put the baby in the car seat. Swing the car seat for the baby until she stops crying. Put stroller in the car for the baby. Drive to destination. Unpack the stroller for the baby. Go to attach car seat to stroller and realize you forgot the adapters for the car seat to attach to the stroller. Drive back home. Try again tomorrow. We've gotten a little bit better each time - we should be ready to take an overnight trip by the time she hits puberty.
My take away from this week is that parenting is definitely meant to be a team sport. Katey's already mentally preparing for me going back to work next week as if I'm heading back to war - "I'm going to miss you when you're gone, babe." The mundane things we do as functioning humans day to day are pretty much forgotten or unnoticed until you have to do them for someone else. It takes a willingness from both people to take on equal responsibility and maintain any semblance of sanity.
I thought I had the "I don't have boobs" card (aka the "I have nipples Greg, can you milk me?" card) as my ace-in-the-hole to avoid the early morning wake up calls, but at our last pediatric check-in, the doctor informed us that Katey can start pumping in a few weeks and suggested I take one of the morning feedings over. We're currently searching for a new pediatrician if anyone knows of a good one...
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