Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Eau de Spit Up

A couple months back Mark made me aware that I had a permanent new smell.  It seems, which was news to me, that I now consistently smell like spit up.  I went in for a hug and asked my darling hubby if he liked the smell of my new body wash.  He informed that he couldn't smell it.  He could just smell milk.  Sour milk aka spit up to be exact.  I, feeling quite embarrassed, apologized and backed away.  He laughed and pulled me back in stating, "It's all good.  I kind of like it in a weird way!"  God love him, he's a great liar!  At least, that is what I was thinking at the time.  I was well aware that I have had a few instances where Benny had dosed me with his scent as if marking his territory, but I didn't think it was a constant fragrance!

A few mornings ago, I had an epic bout of being dosed with baby fluids.  It all started as I was beginning my day in the best way possible.  I was lying in bed feeding Benny.  It was time to switch sides, so I popped him up on my belly before putting him on the other side.  We were chest to chest, and he was lifting his little head up looking me straight in the eyes smiling and cooing away.  It was a perfect moment.  Not only was I so proud of him for holding his head up so well, but he was just so darn cute and happy my heart nearly burst with love!  Then, it happened.  He let loose pretty much every sip of milk he had just eaten all over my face, in my mouth, eyes, and hair, and all over the pillow behind my head.  Mind you, he never stopped smiling through all of this.  I know, I know... It seems impossible for someone to smile while puking, but little man has it down!  I laughed, because what else do you do at that point?  I cleaned Benny up and laid him to the side so I could clean myself and the bed up as well as I could at that point.  As I was swabbing little chunks of milk from my hair, I heard it.  It was the ominous sound of a baby fart that was not JUST a fart.  It was...well...more to say the least.  I, laughing once again, took Benny in to his room to change his larger than life diaper.  When I opened it up, it was bad.  I mean, REAL bad.  I'm just gonna be blunt.  There was poop EVERYWHERE!  He had it on his junk, up towards his belly button, and all the way up his back. Awesome.  Pure Awesome.  Just as I was finishing up the last little bit of wiping feces off of my giggling baby, Mark walked in.  I was laughing and telling him about the morning I had had so far.  This story took my focus off the naked baby butt my hand was in front of just long enough for round 2.  Round 2, the 2nd bout of explosive poo, went all over the changing table, the new diaper, and my hand.  You can't make this stuff up...

Needless to say, I decided a bath was the appropriate course of action at this point.  I threw all the soiled items in the bin, and ran him a bath.  Baths are Benny's favorite time of day, so he grew an even bigger smile on his face as I lowered him in.  So cute, so sweet, so smiley, and so began peeing all over the place.  In the course of 45 minutes, I had been puked on, pooped on, and now peed on as well.  It wasn't even 8am.

Later that evening, Mark and I were getting ready to go to one of our many holiday parties.  I had changed my clothing twice at this point due to Benny, once again. spitting up all over me.  I was laughing because I had put so much effort into getting ready.  I was determined to smell good.  Now, I simply smelled like perfumey spit up.  When we got to the party, I thought I had successfully derailed the stinkiness.  No such luck.  I looked down and realized my pants had a huge dried, stinky spot of baby juice all over the right thigh.  A few moments later, my loving little man decided that my shirt needed to match my pants and I was christened once again.  Lovely.

In the midst of all this, I began joking about it with my mommy friends.  I heard over and over, "You will miss that smell someday!"  Is that possible?  Do you actually get to the point where you miss the smell of sour breast milk?  I was skeptical.

That night I was lying in bed.  Benjamin had been asleep for a few hours already and I was exhausted.  I was thinking about what a sweet little man I had.  How good he had been through all of our holiday parties.  All of his smiles, his giggles, and how he just eats up the attention from anyone that wants to love on him.  I am so blessed to have such a special little guy was all I could think.  While I was thinking this, I grabbed my pillow and snuggled in.  At that moment, I realized that I never remembered to wash my pillowcase after the epic morning of baby fluids I had experienced.  It was funny.  I didn't get grossed out.  I smiled because I understood.  In a weird way, I kind of liked it. I held my pillow a little closer and fell fast asleep.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Christmas Kindness

It's amazing how a new baby makes Christmas seem a million times more magical again!  I am more excited for Christmas this year than I have been in a long time.  I mean, I am ALWAYS excited for Christmas, but this year has a little something extra.  However, despite all my excitement surrounding Christmas, I did find myself getting a little frazzled today.

I had to do some last minute Christmas shopping, true to form, so I headed up to Meijer.  While I was there, Benny was a perfect angel, as always.  He WAS a perfect angel, that is, until I got in line to check out.  This was my first moment experiencing the feeling of being the mom with the screaming child at the store.  Out of nowhere he just started fussing.  I grabbed his bottle,  but this seemed to do no good.  He was fussing and immediately began spitting up all over himself.  While I was trying to calm him down, I was mean mugging the two ladies in front of me who had been trying to figure out the self-scan machine for approximately twenty minutes.  I began contemplating a line jump, but I knew that would inevitably lead to me getting stuck behind an extreme couponer or something of the sort.  Anyhow, when it was finally my turn I noticed that the guy behind me had two items in his hands: diapers and milk.  I, with the full cart and the screaming baby I was attempting to calm as I was beginning to check out, decided to let him go ahead.  Let's be honest, we both knew I was gonna be a while.  After he left, I started checking out and Benny started screaming louder and louder.  I finally got to the end of my items and was attempting to pay.  I swiped my card, hushed Benny, and tried to start bagging my items when the machine beeped.  My card was declined.  I tried again, knowing I had plenty of money in my account.  I swiped the card, hushed the baby, attempted to bag and again heard the ominous beep.  The lady behind me was looking highly irritated.  Suddenly, this lovely lady that reminded me greatly of Loni Love came up and started calming Benny.  She smiled at me and said, and  I quote this precisely, "Honey-Child, I'm gonna bag your groceries for you and smile at this baby.  You go on and get your money figured out and don't you worry a thing about those people behind you."  I almost cried.  Ok, that's a lie.  I was already tearing up from the stressful situation I had found myself in, but more tears came out due to the immense gratitude I felt for this lady.

Finally, after just deciding to use my credit card, and realizing I hadn't paid for the beer in my cart and had to put it back (the one thing I was really looking forward to when I got home), I was done.  I wanted to hug Loni Love like she was my long lost sibling, but I refrained and gave her a very sincere "Merry Christmas" with a "Thank You" on top.  As I pulled the cart away from the check-out, Benjamin instantly fell asleep.  Literally, he immediately stopped crying and passed out the SECOND I headed away from the check out.  I couldn't help but giggle through my tears.

After this, I headed to the dollar store to pick up wrapping paper, bows, and all the stuff to go with it.  Left there, and walked over to Subway to pick up dinner.  As soon as I walk into Subway, there's a lady running behind me with my bag I left at the dollar store.  She hands it to me and says, "You forgot your bag, and I didn't want you to have to run back out with that adorable baby!".  Yup, waterworks again...

It's the little kindnesses in this world that can make your day, your week, or even your season.  Thank you lady that looked a lot like Loni Love and other lady that kind of looked like my Mamaw.   Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!

Monday, December 9, 2013

Thankful for Contentment

You hear so much flack given to people who seem to complain about their lives all year long, and then find time to be thankful for things around Thanksgiving.  While I agree that it can be comical, I don't think there's anything wrong with it.  Sometimes people need something to remind them of the things they do have to be thankful for.  Isn't it better to be thankful when reminded to never be thankful at all? I think so.

I tend to be a pretty happy and upbeat person.  I am a huge believer in the power of one's thoughts.  I truly, TRULY believe that your thoughts can mold your reality.  For this reason, I like to try and be thankful for the blessings I have in life everyday.  I'm not saying I always excel at this, but I do always try.  I try to dwell on the positive and not the negative.  I try to think about all the positive things going on in my life, and not the massive amount of hospital bills we have from Benny being in the NICU.

Despite this daily quest to try and count my blessings whenever possible, I have lived most of my life with a feeling of restlessness.  I felt like I was always waiting on something.  Do you remember that feeling that you used to have as a child when December rolled around?  It was a feeling of anxiousness and excitement!  You were so excited for Christmas to come that every day leading up to it was just an obstacle you had to get through before getting to enjoy the bounty of bliss that arrived on Christmas morning.  For some reason, this is how I have felt most of my life.  I felt like every day was an obstacle I had to get through as I worked towards something else.  I felt like I was waiting for my life to start.  For almost 33 years, I had this feeling of discontent.  This feeling of restlessness.  This feeling of waiting for something, but having no idea what it was or when it was coming.

My own personal quote that lives underneath my Senior yearbook picture is, "Never spend today rushing tomorrow, or all your yesterdays will be a blur."  I thought I was pretty darn clever coming up with that.  I think it was my own self-fulfilling prophecy.

The moment Benjamin was born, this feeling completely went away.  I know it sounds cheesy, but it was honestly as if everything in my life was complete.  I wasn't waiting for life anymore, I was living it.    It is, by far, the most amazing feeling.  I am not saying I feel like my life is perfect, I am just saying that this feeling of restlessness, of waiting, instantly subsided.  Thank God for that!!!