Case of a Newborn's Sterile Fluids

I recently saw one of those ecard funny comics on Facebook that said something to the likeness of how normal it is to throw a towel over your peed on bed (from your children) and go back to sleep.  I am embarrassed to come to realize how many times I have let urine, spit up milk, and yes even a bit of newborn poop come onto my blanket and I just give it a good spot cleaning.  Brant says urine is sterile -- makes me feel better about applying the 5-second rule to cleaning it up:  If I spot clean it in 5 seconds, it hasn't had the time to penetrate into the inner cloth layers to make a full washing required for cleaning.  So I take this and couple it with knowing that her spit up is breast milk, and breast milk has wonderful antibacterial agents, and I make it okay to wait a few on washing the blanket.  Oh the lies we tell ourselves!  If she wouldn't project her wastes then it wouldn't show up on my blanket.  I think she was a week old when I proceeded to change her diaper while nursing and she gave a little squirt on my arm.  I went about cleaning up my arm and she clearly was not done as she gave an even bigger squirt and literally projected a perfect flow directly into my glass of water on my nightstand.  TMI?  I was traumatized.  The very next day as I was determined to wear my bright maxi skirt that showed off that my tummy was already flat 1 week postpartum (the results of pilates core work while pregnant), she drizzled just a tad on my skirt while doing my change-while-nursing routine.  As I spot cleaned that tiny drizzle, out came the water works and the skirt was unwearable.  Note to self --  change-while-nursing, though showing great skill, is not the best idea.  Just now, Little gave my blanket another dose of her sterile fluids, which that, on top of being bored without my guys today, left me with an itch to post.

By "Little" I mean Elisha, our newest addition.  I knew a nickname was inevitable, though I assumed it would simply be Ellie or Ella.  Nope.  With my other two having nicknames like "Moo" and "Bam," another weird nickname was bound to tie itself to this child.  Little gets her nickname because she was my tiniest baby at birth and because my husband and I both thought she was my mini-me.

I mentioned I was without my guys today.  I normally would not be without my husband.  I require a lot of his attention and we tend to go everywhere together.  However, this past week I seemed to be content and encouraging for him to go golfing and the ballgame without me.  Today was the ballgame, and he went with Bam.  This meant I had to get them out of the house and to the bus stop by noon sharp.  Of course this also meant random stuff was out of order in my house getting us out on time.  On such a time limit as this, I was so occupied with this thought:  I can't wait to get home and clean up.  I found that thought became a mantra, as I was perfectly fine to say goodbye to B & B for the afternoon.  Although it didn't take me much more than 30 minutes to miss them terribly.  I found myself stalking the Mariners score as if I actually liked baseball, in anticipation of the final tally which would bring them on a bus back home.  Sure enough, as soon as I saw "Final" I get a ring from Brant.  You should have heard me play it off as if I wasn't a game stalker and already knew that they were on the way home.  Smooth.

Getting them to the station at noon, we managed to make it out of the house at 11:30 and -- drumroll -- my makeup was on my face, my coffee was warm, and my Little wasn't screaming getting put into her car seat.  She was out cold from her shower.  This morning we took her into the actual shower for the first time.  She completely dozed in my arms, even as the water trickled on her face.  I never saw a baby at such peace like that.  It gave me such a peace.  I know most of her tranquility in that water is because it reminded her of her cozy womb-home, and there was something so thoroughly satisfying to know that.

...Then the water went off and she immediately snapped out of it with a scream, and of course!.... she peed on me.  Oy!

Behind the Title

 Sometime in the past 17 days since I had Elisha, there was a increment of days when I noticed a trend -- my coffee would hit the microwave 2-3 times before I had a chance to consume it.  I read this article about how microwaving changes molecular structure of liquids.  If that's true, then by the time I get to my coffee, I wonder if I'm even drinking coffee anymore.  Yesterday I noticed in the middle of the afternoon that my coffee was still sitting in the microwave from that morning.  My husband tells me that maybe I should get used to drinking lukewarm.  I think I was in the middle of a Bible lesson when I said, "I spue out lukewarm."

I already said I would not give up painting my nails as a mother -- something needs to keep me feeling like a woman, and nails just happen to be my barrier between hot mama and mama who's hot because her wardrobe standards have degraded to sweats.  I reminded myself of that 2 days ago as I looked at my 15 days postpartum, UNPAINTED nails.  I quickly slapped some of my preteen daughter's white nail polish on them.  I thank the inventor of '50 seconds till dry' nail polish.  Too bad 50 seconds also doesn't include hardener; it seems we can only get one or the other.  Drat.  That nail polish chipped the very next day while I was preparing my kitchen for the Shabbat with all the cleaning.  Getting back to why I started talking about nails, just so you don't think I totally had a 'squirrel' moment -- I realize I just may have to give up the nails temporarily, but don't ask me to give up the warm beverage.

I had thought of naming it "Cold Coffee & Dead Battery" because at least one of my communicating devices are ever on a dying battery.  I do apologize to those whose phone calls I do not answer -- I'm either running on no battery or no time.  Then again I say "no time" when I will reply to a text message.  Maybe I should say I'm running on no ear.  Mine have reached their chaotic threshold.

With the exception to this past week (because my in-laws were visiting), we still managed to get our school work, house work, Bible studies, dance practices, and meals made each day.  I may not be able to accept lukewarm, but in order to get my daily schedule done I'm willing to accept that change of molecular structure.