Thursday, November 15, 2007

Getting out of the house

I had someone home with me for almost the entire first month of Auletta's life, so when I ventured out of the house I either had someone at home to watch her or help transporting the massive volume of stuff that accompanies a baby whenever it goes anywhere. My sister and I took her shopping when she was a week old, and we went shopping again two weeks after that with Justin's mother and aunt.

Now that I'm home alone with Auletta, I'm figuring out how to get her out of the house on my own. My goal is to go on two walks every day, weather permitting; we usually drive out to a little sort of park with a 9/10-mile loop trail in the morning (I'll sometimes do the Starbucks drive-thru beforehand), and then go for a walk in the neighborhood in the afternoon. On Tuesday I took Auletta as far as a mall about 20 miles away (we don't have a major mall really nearby), and today I went to a new moms group that meets at Panera the next town over. Fortunately Auletta's really good about riding in the carseat--she'll cry for a minute or two and then fall asleep by the time I pull out of the driveway. It pops right into the stroller so I never have to wake her up. It's actually a really nice way to get her to nap. We've been gone as long as three hours without her having to eat or get a diaper change.

(Gross baby TMI warning: around two weeks she started pooping at most once a day. This is apparently normal and fine in breastfed babies, although it happened pretty early with her. It's convenient as far as ordinary diaper changes go, but of course when the deluge finally arrives it's an event. Her last poop was Friday, so I am on notice and rather nervous about going anywhere at all, but if I scheduled my life around her poop I'd never get out.)

Since we just moved and I don't really know anyone here, I feel like this leaving-the-house thing is really crucial for my sanity, so I'm glad I've gotten into the habit early. I am hoping to start doing some kind of postnatal exercise/yoga/baby activity/etc. thing after the holidays, in order to meet people and of course embark on the great American tradition of reliving one's childhood vicariously through one's own offspring.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just you wait until the diapers start fitting too snugly and you get a blowout (um... unless you're cloth-diapering-- those have their own joys too).

Ah... the joys of motherhood.

Deanna said...

JT blew out yesterday. Lucky for me, he was in the church nursery and I didn't have to deal with it! Muhuhahahaaa!!

Good for you on the getting out of the house bit. I got out all the time when Sana was a baby - of course, I could go over to my parents and let her Grandma and Gichan play with her. In fact, my Dad would call me and ask if Sana could come over and play when she was a newborn. It was really cute. Now, he hides upstairs when the kids come over... have I mentioned that they make a lot of noise?