New Mommy Files, Part 9

It's 7 a.m. and I’m about to hit the road to go pick up Raine from her week with the grandparents. Remember I wrote last week how organized and structured my week had to be? For the most part it was. But I surely didn’t complete all the tasks that I wanted to. My co-workers had to chuckle at how scheduled I was. Monday and Tuesday evenings I was scheduled down to the hour: 7:30-8:30 go to grocery store, 8:30-9:00 clean kitchen, 9:00-9:15 take out the trash. I even gave myself 10 minutes to slap rollers in my hair. Call me crazy, but it worked. Monday was by far my best day and I plan to continue to plan my days. I felt such a sense of accomplishment. I had to wonder what in the world I did with all of the spare time I had pre-baby. I can only conclude that I was a total slouch!

But my week got a little out of whack because Raine’s great-grandmother is very sick. I never knew my great-grandparents, so it is amazing to me that Raine has two great-grandmothers. Her dad’s grandmother is in the hospital, so I spent most of my evenings on the phone with him. This all leads up to why I’m picking up Raine. We’re going to head to her dad. He needs to see her. Right now he is consumed with the hospital and his grandmother; Raine will give him a mental break.

I’ve found it doesn’t matter how bad your day is, you have to smile when there is a baby around. Raine was a little ray of sunshine with my parents this week, too, because they were dealing with funeral arrangements for my dad’s aunt. Every time I called I could hear family that had gathered either playing with, feeding or talking about Raine. It got even better when 5-year old cousin India hit the scene yesterday. You just have a lighter heart when kids are around—especially young ones (I don’t know a thing about teenager angst). So once again, baby Raine is on tour, and I’m glad she will be able to meet her aunt and uncle on her dad’s side of the family.

I’m prepared to be the invisible mother this weekend while Raine grabs the spotlight. And she’s so cool about it too. At five months, she’s recognizing familiar faces and giving the gas face to strangers. But she warms up to people pretty quickly. She just had her doctor’s appointment and she’s grown about an inch and gained about a pound, coming in at a whopping 13! She makes for great exercise for the arms! Gotta go pack the car—I only scheduled 20 minutes to write this blog. Enjoy the weekend!

Marcia Caster
Senior Editor, Beauty and Fashion
mcaster@heartandsoul.com