Parenting Infants - What To Expect

Oh, yes! How right they are.

Your new adventure into the realm of parenthood begins long before you’ve ever reached the baby’s new place of residence. It goes something like this . .

. after a little fussing from baby turned backwards in the back of the restrictive car seat Uncle Joe bought, it gets quiet suddenly.

Your mind races on the possibilities of what could be wrong. You know that junior or junioress has been bottled, changed inside to out, and was faithfully rocked, cooed and cuddled right before you left the hospital. In fact it was done two or three times that you know of.

The nurses were a great help.

The silence continues, and you think how you could have been so silly as to sit in the front seat with hubby. Panic sets in. Traffic is heavy, there’s no place to pull over, and besides the vehicle is jammed against a guardrail.

Ceremoniously crawling over the front seat to the rear, even though the obstetrician warned you not to, you finally make it! Baby is still quiet though.

Did you miss something in the crawling scramble to get to baby? Silently you think to yourself, you’ll have to remember when baby starts crawling at six or is it nine months - how much hard work it is.

Mental note filed: Make sure to give lots of encouragement and praise.

Glancing down at a sweet and angelic face, you wonder now should you pick baby up. Racing back in your memories of the child parenting class, you just can’t remember the instructor covering this one. What a useless instructor you mumble.

Grabbing the Aunt Sue I’m sorry I couldn’t attend because of arthritis child development book, you’re just sure the answer is there in the first few pages, it’s just got to be! Aunt Sue was and is always so knowledgeable. She was always so dependable too, well except . . . for the baby shower. She’s had four kids of her own. No worthless baby book would she ever buy.

NO!

There isn’t a category in the index for a once fussy baby suddenly turned quiet in any part of the newborn baby emergencies category. It’s just not there.
Silence continues. Dead quiet except for the hum of the engine and your thoughts of it shouldn’t be this hard, and boy my bladder is full, and shouldn’t that have ended when I gave birth to my confusing yet precious bundle of joy?

No matter you’re almost home.

Suddenly out of the silence without so much as a baby book Aunt Sue clue - it happens!

Achooo!

The sneeze didn’t come from you, or from hubby. It was too tiny and sweet, it’s baby.

Oh no!

How in the world could baby have gotten sick between the hospital and home? No, you’re sure now that baby has gotten ill from the hospital germs, and the second one won’t be delivered there you promise yourself, so incompetent those doctors and nurses are.

A bump in the driveway jars your thoughts and body, and let’s you know your home. You won’t have to reach for the book, besides you’re too tired anyway, and baby has remained blissfully asleep. You yearn for sleep, you need your sleep. And you have a doctor that is on call anyway if baby is sick. No worries.

There is one thing that you do know, as hubby dutifully takes baby out, you’re going to tell Aunt Sue as soon as you see her gleefully taking pictures, that her book she bought wasn’t very helpful – at all.

Aunt Sue is there; in fact she is the first one there at the vehicle door. Mustering all of the patience you can you just happen to mention that the baby book didn’t have baby back seat emergencies in the chapters, nor even mentioned briefly as a passing note in the index.

A different type of silence along with the unexpected answer from Aunt Sue is . . . Oh honey I am so sorry, that’s why I hardly ever used it. It looked new didn’t it? Saved it all these years thinking you’ll have better luck with it than me.

It’s just too much to deal with right now, until wise Uncle Joe casually mentions that he always told Sue that babies don’t come with instructions! That’s why he bought the car seat.

It’ll be so nice to go inside you think and rest. Out of the blue life has changed again with . . . a nose bubble.

Pass the tissue box around for baby please.

Motherhood starts from the second that baby is born, a Mothers heart will race for the rest of her life and baby will always be a baby no matter what! Put your seatbelt on Moms because it’s a glorious bumpy ride that every Mother cherishes.