Welcome to the working week

This week I went back to work and the world kept turning.

To make things easier, numerous sources suggested starting work in the middle of the week, and having Tim drop DJ off at the day care center. So I worked from home on Tuesday, and went into the office for the first time on Wednesday.

After weeks of discussion, we got our commute down, with one car, two different commutes and a day care stop.

Saying good-bye to him in the car that morning made me a little teary, but then it was better. But by the time I got on the train that afternoon, I was antsy to see him. At the day care, he was fast asleep in the swing. He didn’t cry very much, the ladies watching him said.

It was strange to be back in the office, but everyone at work was extremely welcoming. They made a point to tell me they were happy I was back. It’s great to work with such wonderful people.

And speaking of findingDulcinea, have they ever been busy this summer. They have created an entire site devoted to the Olympics and another for this year’s election. Our election site features stories from key races around the country, profiles of battleground states, and guides to politics, this year’s presidential election, political parties and more.

They’ve also launched Encontrando Dulcinea, a Spanish version of our site. So far, guides include supporting military families, the New York City Survival Guide and baseball, with more to come.

Time flies when you're changing diapers

This is my last full week of maternity leave. It seems like I've been out for so long. Next week DJ starts spending three days at a daycare center. I’ll miss him, of course, but I'm okay with him going. Daycare teaches children many valuable lessons, and he’ll meet play mates of a similar age.

We visited the center Monday to pick up some forms, and one of his teachers immediately snapped him up. She played with him and introduced him to the other babies while the head teacher and I talked. He only cried when he came back to me, which seems like a good sign.

The idea of returning to work isn’t scary, but the logistics are worrisome. I’m trying to freeze enough milk for him without knowing how much he eats each day. I can only guess, judging by his pediatrician visit today, that it’s quite a bit. He’s in the 90th percentile for height, and the 75th for weight and plans to report to the Giants’ training camp soon.

Tim and I are also trying to work out how we’re going to drop him off, pick him up and have our respective commutes (bus and train) all with just one car. It will probably take the better part of a month before we figure that routine out.

Flying the friendly skies

This past week DJ and I flew to the Midwest to see my extended family. He met his great-grandmothers, great-aunts, a few cousins, and spent time with Grandma and Granddad. He was a hit, of course, and I got some great pictures.

It’s a trip I planned before he arrived, but as it drew closer, I dreaded the idea of taking him on a plane, and it being just the two of us, no bouncy seats, car seats, play mats or cribs, for several hours. Thanks to the exorbitant air fares, non-stop flights were out of the question, as was purchasing a seat for his car seat. So it was going to be me holding him through the airports and both flights.

Thankfully, all went well, for the most part. We traveled at off times (Tuesday afternoon, Friday morning), so the planes were half-full, which meant a pair of seats to ourselves on each flight.

There were some bumps. He became very fussy right before our first flight took off. Nursing calms him down, but I was trying to wait until we actually took off, since it helps babies' ears adjust to the pressure. As he completely lost it and started screaming, the pilot announced that we’d have to sit on the tarmac for an extra ten minutes since there were too many planes in the airport’s air space. That’s when I about lost it. We didn’t have to wait the full ten minutes, thankfully, and he calmed down.

On the way home, he cried all the way through the security line, drawing many looks from our fellow travelers. I knew what they were thinking: “Please don’t let them be on our plane.”

Would I make the trip again? Not just the two of us. It wasn't the destination, but the traveling. Next time, we'll make sure Tim is with us.

Food for thought

Something about motherhood that surprised me is the extent to which nursing has changed my life. DJ and I seem to be getting the hang of it, but there are always questions -- is he getting enough to eat? Is he getting enough hindmilk? Why did he suddenly start spitting up?

Besides the doubts, nursing is difficult work. Babies eat more frequently than their bottle-fed counterparts, as often as every two to three hours. That clock starts, though, when a feeding begins. So if DJ starts eating at 2 p.m., he'll need to start his next meal by 5 p.m. In the early weeks, nursing could take 45 minutes and doing anything else was tough. Now his feedings go faster. That schedule, thankfully, doesn't apply at night anymore. Now we're on demand, so if he sleeps seven hours straight (which he did two nights last week), we just wait until he wants to eat.

A nursing cover has also made life easier. Armed with it, DJ has eaten in diners, at Ikea, in his Dad's office, in his Mom's office, and even on a bus. That's the nice thing about nursing -- when he gets hungry, I just have to slip the cover over my head. We don't worry about preparing a bottle or making sure we have enough formula when we go out.

Clothing has also been a struggle. At first I stuck to button-down shirts, thinking they would make nursing easier, but they really didn't. And as nursing progressed, many shirts stopped fitting altogether. That was really frustrating, since the remaining baby weight already limited my clothing selection.

Trying to find something in my closet to wear to a recent baby shower was impossible. The only dresses that fit wouldn't have been suitable for nursing. I actually had to go buy a new outfit, which was a pain.

Speaking of pain, nursing isn't supposed to hurt, and doesn't, for the most part. In the beginning, as we were both figuring it out, there was pain. Even today there are occasional minor pains when he doesn't latch properly and we have to start over again, or if we've gone too long between feedings. I have been really lucky, though. Some friends and family who nursed endured quite a bit of pain to do so.

Even with these inconveniences, I'm glad I have been able to nurse, as it's a tremendous benefit to him and helps me feel more bonded. I hope we don't encounter any problems down the road that would make me have to stop doing it.

The chaos is beginning to diminish

This week marked a few milestones for us. We moved into our house, and Tim, whose company has an extremely generous family leave policy, went back to work. Last week, we painted most of the interior and learned how little else gets done when watching a baby is the top priority. Family members helped us by coming to the house while we worked, which we really appreciated.

When they weren’t around, we took turns hanging out with him, but most of it fell to me, since I’m primarily responsible for feeding. I felt guilty about not helping with the house more, but Tim understood. Unpacking has been an extremely slow process, but we’re getting there.

Watching DJ all day is fun but tiring, and there are serious gaps in my childcare knowledge. I can't recall, for example, the words to the song "Pattycake." I also need to remember more children's songs to sing to him. I think he's getting tired of hearing "Old MacDonald" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." I bet there's a site online that could help me, and it's got me thinking about new guides that findingDulcinea could create for such a situation.

DJ is showing more interest in his surroundings, and if wet diapers didn’t bother him so much, he could probably spend hours on end looking at a window, the mobile on his bouncy seat, or the animals hanging from his play mat.

Besides cooing and making all sorts of noises, he's starting to smile, too. At first it was tentative, as his muscles weren’t sure what to do, but it's getting stronger. I hope to capture it on film soon.

This week, we also started acting like grown-ups. After months of talking about buying the Nintendo Wii and unsuccessfully searching for it, we ordered it on Father's Day, along with two games and extra controllers.

Once the ensemble arrived, though, Tim said he thought the money we spent could be used better elsewhere (he's absolutely right, but I, the less responsible one, didn't really think about that), so we returned it without opening any of the packages. He said the people at Circuit City were puzzled by the return.

Settling in

I meant to say this last week, but my apologies to those who have emailed or called that I haven’t responded to yet. I’m really behind when it comes to being social. I still have unwritten thank-you notes hanging over my head.

DJ is going to be a month this week, which amazes me. Here’s something I didn’t know about babies: some don’t sleep quietly. In the middle of the night, DJ coos, makes loud noises, and flings his arms out, hitting the sides of the bassinet. He cries out, but doesn’t cry, and does it all without waking up.

His bassinet is about an inch from my side of the bed, so I notice all these sounds. Earlier this week I mistakenly thought he was awake, so I got up with him when he started these little episodes. We were up every hour, and it was awful.

I talked to a friend about it, and she said some babies were noisy sleepers. The same day, I saw a question about it in a baby book, followed the advice, and things have been better.

A whole new world

I can’t believe two weeks have passed since DJ, as I’ll call him here, arrived. Our sense of time has dissolved so much that we didn’t even realize Memorial Day was here.

It amazes me that things we thought were important a few weeks ago, like checking email every day, just aren’t now. Our days have become a continuous cycle of feeding, changing diapers, changing his clothes once he’s soiled them, holding him, smiling and having staring contests with him. He usually wins.

He’s thrown us a few curveballs already. First, he inherited his father’s blood type, not mine, so there was a danger of jaundice. DJ’s pediatrician thought he should spend time under special lights in the hospital nursery. The lights are designed to help his body process the chemicals that cause jaundice. We planned to have him in the room with us the whole time, so that was disappointing. DJ didn’t seem to mind. In his diaper with cloth “sunglasses” over his eyes under the lights, he looked like he was at the beach.

We minded, though, especially when they had to test his blood every six hours.

And then there’s the nursing. In the hospital, my ob/gyn said his wife called nursing “the second hardest thing you’ll ever do.” She was absolutely right. At this point, nursing takes two hands. The books I read when I was pregnant didn’t discuss what to do when his little arms are flailing between him and me, or how to get him to open his mouth wide enough to latch properly.

It’s important to feed babies every tow or three hours, even if it means waking them up. At night, thankfully, we can let him go four to five hours between feedings.

I now know it’s nearly impossible to intentionally wake a sleeping baby, though there are a million ways to do it accidentally.