Sleepless in (a city just north of) Seattle

It is ridiculous o'clock in the morning.

Scott is asleep.

My two cats are asleep.

Even my baby is asleep.

The whole frigging world is asleep, people!

Correction: The whole frigging world is asleep except me.

Am I asleep? Noooooooooo.

Do I know why the hell I'm awake? Nooooooooooo.

My insomnia began just as Scott and I began working on having Brynn sleep in her own room. Yes, she's been sleeping with us. (pause for your collective gasp) After we brought her home from the hospital, I just couldn't bring myself to put her in her crib to sleep and I was even stressed when we put her into the bassinet next to me in bed. I spent the entire night checking her to make sure that the holes in her lungs hadn't come back. Yes, I know pneumothoraxes don't typically just reform after they've healed but when you're a new mother operating on too little sleep and way too much stress things like logic just don't fly. So, she quickly transitioned to sleeping next to me until just the other night.

I can't say that I miss the incessant stomach kicks and the discomfort of sleeping on one side all night but I do really miss having Brynn sleep with me. Now that she's sleeping in her little crib, I'm sitting down here realizing how much I'm going to miss her tonight. She's sweetly angelic when she's sleeping: loving, cuddly and she smells so wonderfully babylike. (note to self: develop men's cologne that smells like babies and become a billionaire as men everywhere are suddenly mobbed by women unable to help themselves)

I can't help but wonder: is this change in our routine causing my insomnia? Do I toss and turn because I miss my little bambina? Am I still on some level worried about her little lungs? Who knows. This wondering aside, I just want the sleep drought to end because I don't just have bags under my eyes, people, I've got steam trunks. Huge, tired, steam trunks that I can't even blame on my baby. Aaaaugh!

The Baby Book

When I was little, I always got a massive charge out of reading my baby book. To be honest, I think the allure was mostly that it just seemed really cool to me that this book was both for and about my favourite subject: me. I'm sure my mom groaned every time I dug it out because it would inevitably result in my chasing her around the house pelting her with any number of supplementary questions. Somehow it just wasn't enough to know what my first word was. To hell with that! What was my first, my second, and my third? (for your information, my first word was "cookie" and despite having used my best interrogation techniques, I still have no idea what my second and third were...)

So, it probably comes as no surprise that I'm planning a baby book for Brynn and that I have been for some time. The only surprising thing is that I've left it this long to actually start one. No, Brynn will not suffer with a baby book filled with empty pages so I realized the other day that I had to get off my ass and get it started. On Friday, I packed up Brynn and headed off to the mall where I finally picked up Brynn's baby book. I'm pretty damn jazzed to start this thing and yes, I've just now realized how lame that word sounds..."jazzed" Pfft.

Anyway...what isn't so "jazzy" is the baby's first Brynn is currently experiencing: baby's first rhinovirus. In other words: my kid has her first cold. Snotty noses aren't so bad for the average adult but for babies? Just imagine only being able to breathe through your nose and then shove a cork up each nostril. Fun Fun Fun.

Not surprisingly, there isn't an entry in Brynn's baby book to chronicle this experience for posterity. I suspect the editors quickly realized that asking a new mother to talk about anything like a baby's first illness would quickly degenerate from a factual account to tears and then to an R rated rant. Or, if the new mother is a Worth, directly to the R rated rant (we're nothing if not quick on the draw). To be honest, it is just as well. I don't much relish the prospect of explaining to a young Brynn the proper use of the various four letter words that come to mind when describing how her being sick makes me feel.

Baby Math

1 baby/2 months old + 3 needles = crying females x 2

Today Scott and I took Brynn in for her first set of immunizations. umm...I was warned that it would be tough but that just doesn't do this whole crappy experience justice. I've spent most of the day trying not to mentally relive the moment when she freeeeeeeeeaked out because of the first needle. Her sweet little face went from cutely happy to confused to completely pissed in no time flat. Scott swears she looked at him as though asking, "why? why did you do this to me?"

While I've spent the balance of the day wallowing in guilt, Brynn has been laying on or beside me making sleepy "happy kitty" noises (her version of snoring sounds like a cat purring) and I'm left to wonder if I didn't get the raw end of this deal. She suffered for a couple of minutes but I can guarantee this is going to haunt me for days.

Maybe next time they can give me the shots and she can watch me cry?

WTF - Microwave Popcorn?

File this under "random weird shit found in Bloggerville" with a sub file labeled "potentially too much info" for those of you who a) don't already have kids and/or b) have weak stomachs. To those I am about to gross out, I apologize but you were fairly forewarned.

I've found that I can tell when Brynn has left a little "sompen' sompen' " in her diaper by the smell. No. It doesn't smell like crap. Or at least conventional crap. Somehow I've given birth to the first child in history who smells like microwave popcorn when she takes a dump.

And yes, I know just how crazy that sounds.

Quite frankly, I have no idea how this happened. Does Brynn truly smell like Orville Redenbacher's Smart Pop or are my mommy hormones playing a trick on me so I won't resent changing her dirty diapers quite as much as I would if they were as smelly as they look like they should be. Your guess is as good as mine but date night at the movies will never be the same, let me tell you...