Parent-in-training. Do not judge.

Parent-in-training. Do not judge.

Tess' inner monologue: 

"You guys really don't have a clue, do you?"

The title of this post should be stamped on t-shirts for all new parents to wear. I feel this way after Andy and I experienced our first parenting fail the other day… First of many, is my guess.

While I was pregnant we considered getting a nursing chair – one of those gliding arm chair/rocking chair type of deals meant for sitting in while you feed your baby.  I decided against buying one in the end because they are damn expensive.  It seemed like such a luxury, hundreds of dollars for a piece of furniture when we have plenty of comfortable seats and couches in our house.  I decided to just use this old arm chair we have… a recliner that Andy had inherited from a department lounge at the University of Chicago about 10 years ago.  I know, that sounds horrible, but its pretty comfortable, and had previously only been used as our dog Twickers’ favorite spot, so in it went to our bedroom ready for nursing.

Twickers is very happy this will not work as a nursing chair and she can have it back.

Then Tess arrived and I realized how much time per day I actually spend nursing her.  And realized how critical back support is while you’re nursing.  She was home for a couple of days and I already had a sore back, sore wrists, a sore ass, etc.  I realized I shouldn’t have been so stinking cheap and wish I had just bought the friggin’ nursing chair.

So on Thursday Andy, Tess and I decided to go out and “quickly” buy a nursing chair.  HA!  Quickly… Come to find out, nothing can be done quickly when an infant is involved.  Sure, parents always harp on this… and I knew leaving the house would require diaper bags and car seats, but I never really realized what it was like.  I’ve formed a theory about it this week. It isn’t just the mere fact that life is complicated with a baby and you need to have a hundred different things prepared to go out. My theory is that as one enters parenthood, they pass through a time portal.  On the other side of that portal time moves at a different pace.  An hour goes by in what seems like 10 minutes now.  Andy and I keep looking at each other and saying, “how is it already XX o’clock??!!”  The first day we were home from the hospital, we had our pediatrician visit at 10:30am.  We started the process of “getting ready” – aka feeding Tess – at 7am.  PLEEEEEENTY of time we thought.  Somehow we were still 15 minutes late. Way to make a good first impression at our new doctor’s office. 

Proud papa at our first pediatrician appointment.  

She gained 3 oz!  

After hearing that news, we didn't care about our tardiness. 

Anyway, back to the parenting fail on Thursday.  We had some friends coming by at around 3:30 that day to meet our little nugget, and we were out the door to go shopping by noon. Again, PLEEEEENTY of time to go buy a chair and be back for our friends.  HA, again.  “Plenty of time.”  Famous last words. 

 Ready to head out into the cold, cruel world.

We first go to the Baby Depot at Burlington Coat Factory thinking we had the best chance of finding an inexpensive chair there, but of course we get there and they don’t sell nursing chairs. Awesome, that ate up about 30 minutes.  But we thought, “its only 12:30, we still have 3 hours… let’s run up to the Babies R’ Us and get one. “ Besides, this BCF is pretty ghetto and Andy says “Let’s get her out of her before she catches something from this place.”  We had a good laugh about that, and headed out to Babies R Us.

The closest Babies R Us is near the Perimeter Mall, for those in Atlanta who are familiar. For those who aren’t, you can imagine what ANY mall in America looks like 5 days before Christmas. We foolishly assumed since it was a Thursday at 1pm, people would be working so traffic wouldn’t be too bad. WRONG! Apparently in the Atlanta ‘burbs, people don’t work.  Traffic was a NIGHTMARE!!!  Ohhhh my God, it took us 20 minutes to go a ¼ mile past the mall.  But, still we thought… PLEEEEENTY of time!  I knew the general type of chair I wanted to buy, and was just going to quickly sit in a few, pick one, and tell the sales clerk to “wrap it up.”  We can do this.

Then, from the backseat Tess started to WAIL!  I looked at the clock and I realized it was feedin’ time.  Great.  I tell Andy, let’s just pull over into this Bed Bath and Beyond parking lot and I’ll feed her “real quick.” Again, I was just tempting fate to assume anything can be “real quick.”  So into the back seat I climb, and before I whip out a boob I decide to check her diaper – or nappy as we are calling it - to make sure that wasn’t the source of her wail.  Crap.  Literally.  She had a huuuuuge poo.  Since I’m still new at this nappy business, I knew I would not be able to change her on my lap in the car.  More experienced parents could probably change a nappy one-handed  while fighting off a pack of wolves, teetering on the edge of an active volcano, but not I. Not yet at least.  So I tell Andy that I’ll just run into the Bed, Bath and Beyond and use their changing table.

I place the protective pad that came in her diaper bag onto the table and put her up.  I am feeling pretty pleased with myself at how smoothly things are going, then another woman comes in.  She comments on the sound of Tess’ cry, “oh that’s a new baby cry! How old is she?” the woman asks. I reply “1 week.” Then stop and think to myself, “Holy shit! I have a 6-day old newborn on a public toilet changing table!!!!!!!!!!!” I am certain that this woman is staring at me with a  look of shock and contempt that I would risk exposing my “immune system-less” child to God-knows-what on this changing table, and begin to panic.  By the time I get Tess cleaned up I have convinced myself she now has Hep C, and I am the world’s worst mother.  Also running through my mind was our previous days’ first outing with Tess. It was a warm day so after taking her for her first walk through our neighborhood, we decided to take her to the Marlay House (our favorite pub). Andy would grab a pint and we’d catch up with the pub owners after a long hiatus during the pregnancy.  Great – so far, she’s made two outings… to the bar and to a public restroom changing table. I’m officially beating Dina Lohan in the Worst Mother of 2012 race.

Out for a lovely first walk through the neighborhood with the dogs.

Baby's first Guinness.  She looks like she's had 10!

I get back out to the car – oh, and did I mention it was also a torrential downpour outside? Yea, forgot that part.  It was like a monsoon.  So now I’m also convinced Tess will get the flu from the cold, wet weather I’ve brought her out in. I even took some of my hand sanitizer out and rubbed it on her little hands.  (Neither her hands, nor any other part of her body - by the way - had touched ANYTHING in this restroom or anywhere else… but, better safe than sorry.)

  On the verge of an emotional breakdown, I tell Andy I don’t even want to go to the damn Babies R Us anymore and instead decide to essentially cover my body in hand sanitizer, nurse Tess in the backseat, and drive home.

We got home in time for our friends’ visit at 3:30, but had basically driven around Atlanta for over 3 hours to only accomplish exposing my newborn to bubonic plague and to nurse her in a parking lot.  After a hot shower, a visit from good friends, and having taken Tess’ temperature to find she was not feverish, I DID start to calm down about the bubonic plague.  I mean, it was a Bed, Bath and Beyond not a damn Waffle House after all.  And I did have the pad… but it was just the idea of what I had done - AND the judgement I felt from that woman in the restroom - that made me panic more than anything.  And the fact that I just feel completely clueless about parenthood in general. I keep wanting to ask someone what the protocol is for various different scenarios just like this!  I can’t tell you all the phone calls to my mom that start with “is this normal?!”  I’ve even taken photos of poopy nappies to show her or my pediatrician at our next visit.  And yes, I am aware that I am insane.

Eventually, we were able to have a sense of humor about the whole thing fortunately, and even made a successful attempt at going out again the next day.  I fed Tess immediately before leaving the house, went out before mall traffic started, avoided public restrooms, and got to Babies R Us 30 minutes after they opened.  We may make mistakes, but what’s important is that we learn from them!  Although, I’m definitely a “shop-around” type of girl… I will drive around to 10 different stores to save $20 on something (even if I use $20 worth of gas in the process).  So my initial instinct was to leave Babies R Us and go “check out a few other places.” Then it dawned on me that, right now at least, I don’t have the luxury of shopping around.  I picked a chair and had Andy load it into the car. 

The WONDERFUL new nursing chair that provides plenty of back support.  

Its like a whole new world.

Me contemplating whether its possible to keep my little Tessie 

wrapped up inside my robe until she's about 18. Safer that way, I think.

It all took less than 2 hours, I have a - hopefully - Hepatitis free baby and a lovely comfortable nursing chair that has already changed my life.  In the end, our parenting fail turned into a roaring success! Just as long as my next post isn’t titled “First fever…”

Recovering from a hectic day in the arms of her daddy.