LOGO : Site title

My husband and I have developed that twisted, new parent obsession with baby poop and baby barf. It's now a large chunk of our conversation, ranking right up there with American Idol and how to minimize our carbon footprint. It's a strange pride, I think, that we share, over the sheer volume, variety and circumstances in which it all happens. It comes out of the baby that we made together, and that makes it the opposite of a "gross out" for us. It's way more fun to brag about it.

Breastfeeding. I love it. I hate it. Then I love it again. Then I hate it again. A few friends told me it would be hard. Others told me it would be wonderful. They were all right.

Firstly, I love that I figured it out.

W hen I finally went into labour six days after my due date, little did I know my son would enter this world by an unplanned c-section. After a good 24 hours of contractions, the doctor on duty at the hospital broke my waters to speed things along, only to find meconium spilling out with everything else, quite common with overdue babies, I guess. In essence, meconium is baby poop, and in most cases, its presence indicates a toxic condition that is no good for anyone. It almost always calls for an immediate c-section, as was the case with me.

M y son calls me “Dada.”

Let me just state that I have never been mistaken for a man before: I have longish hair, wear mascara everyday, paint my toenails and have fair features, and look nothing like my husband. We have always made clear reference to me as “Momma” or “Mommy,” but for some reason when either of us prompts him to say “Momma!” Junior will respond with an emphatic “Dada!” every time. 

B efore I had a baby, I had very particular ideas about how I wanted to parent and the things that were important to me. I read a lot and thought a lot about values, health and safety issues and things like manners. I reflected on ways that I had been raised and things I saw friends doing with their children and had a “grab bag” of sorts, of things I wanted to emulate and things I wanted to change.

M aybe I'm overreacting, but when I recently read an online article from the New York Times, “Twittering from the Cradle,” I almost had a bird. 

Apparently, some parents have now started the ultimate in controlling and packaging their children’s lives for the world to see by blogging and “social networking” in their names. This must be because their children are too busy pooping, crying, eating and sleeping to do it themselves. Oh, and because they can’t speak, let alone type. Some of them are only 10 weeks old.

O n our way home from the cottage last weekend, we (my father, my husband, my son and I) were driving along highway 69 south to Parry Sound, a two-lane highway, when suddenly all the traffic in front of us came to a total stop. After about five minutes, my father turned the car off and we waited. 

It was a hot sunny day, and after a few minutes with the car off, it started to get hot inside, so we opened the windows to get some air. It didn’t take long before my mind started racing. 

I t seems fitting that I am sitting down to write this as Jack plays naughtily in his crib instead of napping, the morning after he was up for over an hour in the night for the first time in two weeks instead of sleeping through the night. I’m tired, and I know I’m not the only one. Most of us are, and it’s having significant impacts on our bodily and mental health, safety and productivity.

C lose to the end of my pregnancy, my husband took up crossword puzzles. I think it was a way to lessen the feeling that we were waiting for something that seemed like it would never happen, back when I felt like I would be pregnant forever. Junior was 9 days late, so it really did feel like that for the last few weeks.