From Womb to World

It is amazing how quickly I forgot what it is like to have a newborn. I thought I'd document some observations for next time around:

1) Always use a changing pad: I put Diego on the bed to perform what I thought would be a quick diaper change. A sponge bath, outfit change and change of bed sheets later I was finally ready to get out the door.

2) Baby voices are instinctual? Charlie even uses a baby voice when talking to Diego. He likes to get really close to Diego's face and in a high pitched tone say "Hi Diego, hi Diego, hi Diego, hi Diego" about 10 times.

3) Two year olds aren't babies anymore: Until Diego arrived we referred to Charlie as our baby. But in the last two weeks he seems to have become a giant. Despite his size (relative to his brother) he still needs some babying. He certainly is growing into his big brother role, but I need to remember that up until 2 weeks ago he was the little baby.

4) Newborns sleep a lot: Diego doesn't have many new tricks other than opening his eyes.

5) Budget way more time than I think I need to do anything. I always tease Carlos for how poorly he estimates the duration of house projects and yet I seem to do the same with the kids. I thought 30 minutes was enough time to get out of the house, but that was a joke. I also thought that the drive from Philly to DC would take the normal 2.5 hours. HA! Charlie, Diego and I drove back from Philly and got to know all the service centers along the drive. Charlie had to go pee, Diego was hungry, Charlie manuevered himself partially out of his car seat, Diego did a poo...We stopped 4 times and arrived an hour late.

5) Plan for things to go wrong: 10 minutes after my mom, Diego, Charlie and I had gotten out the door to go for a walk the house alarm went off so my mom went running home leaving the 3 of us at the pizza place. We got up to start walking and it started to pour rain so we went to Starbucks to wait out the rain. Charlie paced around Starbucks singing the wheels on the bus song and then demanded to go pee. It's not easy to help Charlie go pee in a public bathroom while holding a newborn! The rain caused flooding in the basement and caused all the power to go off in the house. 4 hours later half the house had power and so to salvage all the food in the fridge we had to pull it out and run an extension cord into the hallway. Here is Charlie eating pizza before the rain and singing in Starbucks.

6) Kimono shirts are key: I'm still cycling through the 5 kimono shirts I have - including 3 from the hospital (one from Charlie's birth, one from Diego's birth and one that Carlos talked the hospital into giving us)

7) I'm always going to forget something: No matter how well I think I packed the diaper bag I am always missing something. And whatever it is I forgot we are sure to need or want. Oh well.

8) Don't try to get anything done in a day: I'm much happier this time around as I don't bother to try to be productive. I usually only have one had free at a time and that's just enough to throw the ball to Charlie or read a book.