I get by with a little help from my Zens...

6 Weeks

Five New Born Tips

1. Mozart calms babies and your household. Seriously, it works. When you play it, there is a reason it sounds familiar. (Thank you, Greg.)

2. If you ever doubted the swaddle sleeping technique and decide to let your baby go 'arms free' for a week—slap yourself. This woman who graciously shared her adaptation with the Internet should be sainted. (Thank you, Greg.)

3. Baby Wise feed/sleep schedule. It works. You won't realize it until Week 6 but the first time your little one sleeps in the crib for two hours in the middle of the day you will cry with joy and wander the living room wondering why your wrists feel loose. (Thank you drunk lady who told Greg.)

4. Stop freaking out your baby by pulling poopy onesies up over his head. The collar is designed to be pulled down. Yup. Not just a trend started in prison. Check it out. (Thank you Aunt Brittini and Facebook.)

5. Rake leaves. If you don't have a rake or leaves—find them. Go to Home Depot and hit Central Park. Return the rake after an hour. I don't mean 'get exercise' or 'go outside'. It has to be just that. Raking leaves. Do it for an hour and you'll love your self, your partner, and your new kid all over again. You'll see what I mean. (Thank you trees.)

Chiaroscuro

5 Weeks

Here's to future new moms. I wish you lots of luck, love, sleep, patience, good health, friendships, plentiful breast milk, uncomplicated deliveries, happy babies, generous family, and compassionate partners.

Know this:

YOU WILL SURVIVE WEEK FIVE

after...

...picking a fight with your mother.

...obsessing that you are going to be fired when you return to work.

...dealing with a new, unsuccessful afternoon of feeding you will start to worry. You will take baby's temperature, you will sing to him, dance for him, you will take your own temperature. You will Google symptoms and discover disturbing poop color meanings. You will realize it's too late to call the doctor. You will spend your precious and rare sleep time that evening wondering if it was Ebola, something you ate, accidentally rubbed on your body, washed with, or spontaneously oozed. You will spend every feeding after coaching your baby for the Milk Olympics. He will finally eat. He will EAT! All will be well! He will then spit everything up.

...finishing a half eaten apple you found in the living room, you chuckle to yourself recalling having started it the day before. Then you will remember that wasn't you.

...peeing on your own hand while attempting to balance your new born undisturbed, suckling a boob. You will have rolled out of bed at 2:30a and immediately attached him before realizing you should have gone to the bathroom first.

...figuring out how to sanitize one hand with one hand.

...picking a fight with a phone solicitor. 

...obsessing that your friends don't like you anymore.

...realizing you have not eaten a vegetable in three days.

...finally handing your baby to your partner for a few minutes so you can take care of things requiring two limbs, you will look at pictures of your baby on your phone.

...picking a fight with your hairbrush.

...shaving your own ankles for the first time in months you will cut yourself and laugh in a way that troubles you somewhere deep inside.

...cursing at the dog for misunderstanding your joke.

...beginning a sleepy sentence that enlists your partner to change a nighttime diaper, you will choke on the word "help" and repeatedly sob-slobber that word over and over again...

Here's to all mothers and their mothers. Especially single mothers. You ladies deserve a genie in a bottle for every day. And here's to remembering that it's OK to have a hard time. Enjoy the hard times. They're good too. You can't have the light without the [cue: blood-curdling, screaming infant].

What's a Little Air Guitar Between Friends?

4 Weeks

4 Weeks, 6 Days

4 Weeks, 6.5 Days

"Well look at that. He really likes his mother." A sweet, elderly gentleman leaves his cart and place in line to aim his bent over stature towards the thing to which I'm cooing. He's disheveled in a wrinkled, tan overcoat, but not in an alarming way—in an, I-have-bad-arthritis-this-is-the-best-I'm-ever-going-to-look-unless-someone-can-reach-my-hair-for-me, kind of way. He has a slight odor and catches his own drool after he speaks. It is not lost on me how a life is beginning and a life is ending all on line at Target's customer service counter.

I return yet another diaper rash cream that does not work and Ren starts to fuss. It's his first time under super-center fluorescent lights. His first ride in a grocery basket. His first errand with just his mom. We both cried a little when we got out of the car and back in it. I'm still not sure how I spent $75 on Purell.

The demographic of the typical Target shopper mid-day, mid-week takes place at each end of the life-spectrum. New moms and old fathers plus a few Robert Smith-a-like teenagers bleeding in from the mall. The perfect sampling of middle-American life on the grid.

"He's a MONSTER!" Ren's doctor tells us after he explains that Ren's weight (11lbs 1oz) is in the 80% and his height (23.75") is literally off the charts. So far, Ren likes to eat and Ren likes to grow. This week was full of milestones for our little guy: he turned one month old; he slept for five hours straight three nights in a row; he moved out of newborn diapers and into fantastic rock 'n roll seconds from his West coast friend, Mick; he went with mom on an adventure to the store and...

Ren.

Smiled.

I can die now. Except I'd like to be around to watch him do that for the next 100 years or so...