Well my little dishes of hard candies, we have done it.

1 month in the books! If I would have written a blog post two or three weeks ago, there would not have been an exclamation mark after the first sentence. It would have ended with a period. A dismal, pathetic period. I’ve been through a lot over the past month and I know what you’re thinking. Like, duh. You just had a freakin’ baby. Of course you’ve “been through a lot”. Sometimes when I am feeling REALLY bad about myself or my parenting, I think, “wow, Snooki (you know, from Jersey Shore) is a mom. How did SHE do this?” Haha. And really, we should all stan for Snook. She turned out ok. And so have I.

The first couple of weeks were rough. Mostly because I felt it quite challenging to both care for myself and for our baby. I was still in a substantial amount of pain from what I had gone through. If you haven’t read about that yet, you can do so here. I was taking about 8 medications each day  at different increments. I was trying to eat and drink as much as I could consistently. Which doesn’t sound hard but was. All the while trying to pump 6-8 times, take my blood pressure twice a day, sleep and nap, shower, and you know…do all the other things to keep my life in order. My mom and David were godsends. As were all the wonderful people who brought over food and came for visits.

I also cried. ALOT. They weren’t kidding about those hormones, man. Clara had a bit of diaper rash in the first couple of weeks and when I saw her tiny bum sprinkled with red splotches I just absolutely lost my sh*t. OVER DIAPER RASH. Come on Natalie pull yourself together SHEESH.

David would leave for 0.322 minutes and I would call him and make sure he was okay and hadn’t died in a car accident. I would touch my hand to Clara’s forehead every 5 minutes to make sure she was warm and breathing. I would picture myself tumbling down the stairs with her in my arms. Postpartum anxiety much there partner?

I have never felt closer to my husband than ever before. I feel a love so deep for him, it really does make me weep like I am reading a Jane Austen novel. My heart feels like it is going to explode with love just about every hour. For this baby, for my family. Every time her big sister gives her a kiss, or Meira lays down next to her bouncy chair, or I catch David on the couch singing to her and softly kissing her tiny head. I’m a woman in love.

But enough about that! Let’s get to the nitty-gritties of how I am doing with infant care!

I would give myself a B+ honestly. I am a solid A with singing a variety of songs to her, but get a big fat F for lyric correctness (except when it comes to musicals or Disney, of course). But like, Little Bunny Foo-Foo? I am ALL over the place. I get a C in diaper changing because she absolutely hates it and therefore, I do too. You see, Clara unhappy = Me VERY unhappy. She cries and bicycles those little legs and sometimes I just struggle securing those darn nappies.

I also get a C in bathtime regularity. Yes, at times I have a dirty baby. Why? See above paragraph. Girlfriend does not enjoy baths so, you guessed it! Neither do I.

However, I get an A in walks and snuggling because she likes those things very much. She falls asleep on me at least once a day and yes, it IS heaven on earth.

Clara gets a B+ in sleeping, which has made life not too shabby for us. We have a routine where I go to bed VERY early, around 7:30 and then David goes to bed around midnight. He takes care of feeding her around 9 and midnight and I do the ones around 3 AM and 6 AM. However, now that she is a month, we can start doing a bit longer stretches.

So we are doing pretty great all things considered. She weighs 8.4 lbs now and is 21 inches long. She is growing well and almost out of newborn clothes! Her eyes are turning more and more blue and her eyelashes are getting super long which is of course, EVERYTHING.

Leave any questions below in the comments :). xoxo