MichMoms Blog

Category: New baby

Baby fills busy weekend with love

I survived our busy weekend and it was wonderful. It was two days of pure excitement featuring my superstar daughter, Aline. The weekend was hers and she owned every minute of it.

The marathon started Saturday with Halloween. With all the preparations under way for her Christening on Sunday, I was not sure we were going to have the time to take her out trick or treating on Saturday, but we did.

Aline was a ladybug for Halloween. The costume I found online turned out to be very cute as well as comfortable on her - so much so that she tolerated it for close to two hours and it fit in the car seat.

We started the tour with a stop at Aline's godmother's house. After a lot of pictures, tons of kisses and a special hello from Cello the dog, we repeated this scene at auntie No. 2's house. From there we stopped at Grandma's house for even more hugs and kisses. Then it was a quick stop at a friend's house and back home where an exhausted Aline drank her bottle and fell quickly to sleep.

The highlight of the evening was the stop at a friend's house who has an 11-week old beautiful little girl. The two babies could not stop starring at each other, which made me wonder: What do babies think about when they see each other? Is it like, "Hello, I am finally glad to see someone my size?" Or, "Hey, aren't you tired of all the hugs and kisses?" Or, "Can you believe this ridiculous costume?"

Aline knew something was up Sunday. She was very clingy all morning and demanded our full attention every minute leading up to the christening ceremony, which made getting ready a bit more difficult than usual. I tried my best to time her feedings and bathroom outings, so as to avoid any possible meltdowns later; well, at least I tried.

I could not have scripted a better start to the ceremony. The church looked beautiful, the sun shone outside, all the guests arrived on time, cameras were flashing. Aline was in a great mood, looking everywhere, even reaching out to touch the deacon's colorful robes. Everything was perfect -until the time came to take her clothes off for the infamous dunk in the baptismal fountain.

That's when her godmother and I discovered my daughter had soiled her diaper. Seeing both of our horrified looks, Aline burst into tears and that was the end of the perfect ceremony. She screamed for the rest of the service and only calmed down when she got ahold of the ribbons on her new white dress.

As we posed for pictures at the end, I could felt only utter joy not only at seeing my baby girl glowing in her white dress, but also at seeing the people gathered around her and feeling, that no matter what her future holds, she will always be loved.

Category: New baby

New mom: I certainly didn't expect that!

Upon becoming a new mom this year, I am often asked:

"So, what didn't you expect about becoming a mommy?"

• I didn't expect to be this busy all the time. Now that my son is 4 months old, I long for the newborn days where he slept most of the time. Not that I don't love playing with my son - I actually miss him when he is sleeping now - but I was used to having a lot of "me" time. Now, it's nonexistent! Maybe I should have seen this one coming, but I didn't really expect it to be so immediate. *grin*
• I am often at a loss of what to do next to entertain my son. The attention span of a baby is not what I thought. I often pull out all of his toys, one after another, every day, and have to pick up every single toy he owns when he goes down for the night.(Well, maybe I leave some where they are most of the time ...)
• My son is growing so fast! Who knew that by 4 months he would have two teeth, be able to roll over and say "mama"? Sometimes I forget how young he actually is because I didn't know what the stages of babyhood looked like.
• He's a lot cuter than I thought he was going to be. The funny thing about that is, he looks like I was drawn onto the body of my husband yet everyone says he looks more like daddy. Phff. Rip off.
• Babies are gassy. Wow, I didn't know that much gas could come out of a kid! When my son was first born, he had tummy issues with gas. After rocking, feeding, walking around with and bouncing a screaming 2-week-old for four hours one night, we learned the culprit: gas. Thank you gripe water! Now that he is older, the gas has no problem escaping - at the most awkward and hilarious moments. No wonder my mother never took me seriously! Babies are gassy!

There are many other things that amaze me every day, but alas, I am too tired and busy to grab a pen and write them all down. I can tell you this though, being a mom is the hardest job I have ever had, yet I wouldn't trade it for the world. I certainly wasn't expecting that.