I’ve written before about how a new baby changes a marriage, but in the seven months (today!) since having Jackson, I’m also experiencing the effects motherhood has on my friendships. I’ve been surprised to find that having a baby can have many positive effects on one’s social life, like a whole new circle of other mom friends. Being a new mom can also benefit old friendships, too, even with friends who don’t have children. [Click to continue]
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Jack’s been sitting up on his own for the last couple of weeks, which is a really fun milestone. It was getting difficult for him to fold laundry, pour mama a beer, and cut his steak lying flat on his back all the time.
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We need a palate cleanser after that last column, so here’s picture of Miles as a kitten. It’s blurry, I know, but it’s a favorite of mine. This was snapped the day I brought him home from the shelter where he’d been staying for a few weeks (Can you believe it took that long to adopt him out???). My understanding is that he had been hit by a car, someone found him and then brought him to the shelter where the vet performed minor surgery, amputating a couple of toes from his back foot that had been badly mangled. He has a slight limp these days, but other than that, no other complications from the accident.
And just look at that face! He makes my life so much sweeter; Our family wouldn’t be the same without him.
“Fun” fact: Simone’s tail was amputated when she was two, so both of my kitties are missing appendages.
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It’s not an exaggeration when I say that one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and certainly one of the best parent-related decisions, was to start a new moms’ group shortly before Jackson was born. A month or so before my due date, I put a message up on my neighborhood parenting listserv asking if any other women expecting fall babies would like to meet and perhaps continue meeting through the initial months of new motherhood. I expected a few responses, but, within days, my email box was flooded with replies. We set a date and a few of us met for dinner, a gaggle of 8- and 9-month pregnant women ordering pizza and eyeing the wine list longingly.
Two days later the first of us went into labor. Two days after that another one had her baby, and a few days later Jackson was born. Over the next two months, there was another baby born almost every week, and additional women joined our group as word spread. By December, there were over 20 of us (plus our babies) and many of us had begun meeting for weekly lunch potlucks, going for walks in the park on warmer days, getting coffee, going to baby-friendly bars for happy hour, and hanging out at each other’s homes as our tiny children grew from newborns into smiling, laughing, drooling little infants. [Click to continue]
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Jackson turns six months old on Monday — the same day his father turns 42. Six months ago, he was a tiny, itty bitty thing — only five pounds! — with thin, wrinkled skin, and nothing where his eyelashes and eyebrows would eventually grow. He almost fit into the palm of my hand and for the first three weeks of his life, I worried that he could stop breathing at any time. At night, instead of sleeping, I hovered over him, watching his chest rise and fall, willing myself to stay awake in case he needed me.
His father, of course, was right there beside us, staying awake through the night, bottle-feeding Jackson and changing his diapers, grinning ear-to-ear through the fog of sleep deprivation. He had waited so long to become a dad and as excited as he was to find me, to fall in love and become a husband, fatherhood was the topping, the thing that gave his life its richest meaning. And, boy, does he love it. [Click to continue]
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