Fall family walks make me feel warm all over!

The actual" pre-first family walk" photo

Eva arrived in the world preterm right in time for the H1N1 Flu frenzy.  Everyone (my doctor, Eva's doctor(s), the visiting nurse, my mother, my mom friends, my non-mom friends, etc) all warned me about taking my fragile little baby nugget out into public. When I say that they "warned me", I mean to say that they "scared the living shit out of me". So, I didn't take her out. Like, at all.

The first time she went to the grocery store she was 4 months old. First trip to a restaurant was after that. She only went to the doctors for her or my appointments. That was it. If you came to visit her, your privacy was invaded as I or Matt hovered over you while you washed your hands thoroughly upon arrival. Matt and I were vaccinated out the wazoo. Eva was not getting swine flu under any circumstances!

Needless to say, my first season as a stay-at-home mommy was horribly boring. Am I allowed to say that? Or is that beyond awful to admit? Eva slept all day and when she didn't, she just laid there in whatever position I put her in. I would pump and feed, change a diaper, change an outfit, put to sleep, pump again and repeat...and NEVER leave the house. I admit, I took it to an unnecessary extreme, but I'd love to know how other mothers would have reacted? Do you take your kid to Babies R Us, which is the most germ-infested shit hole on the planet when they are a month old and under 6 pounds when everyone you love and trust is telling you they will get sick and die if they get the highly contagious H1N1 flu? Yeah, I didn't really think so. It was a lose/lose situation. 

I was climbing the walls. The only person I knew not working and free to chat when I was lonely was my mother, so I called her....constantly! Mostly everyone else was working. I only had one or two friends at home with kids, but their babies were all older and they were busy chasing them around all day and shuffling them from this activity to that one. My closest friends are all teachers and were in the thick of the "back to school" abyss where teachers disappear to for the first month of school before they resurface on the planet. I was horribly lonely. Despite that lonely ache, I never really considered returning to work at the end of my FMLA leave. I knew that less-lonely times were ahead and I wanted to be home for every single one of them and I was lucky enough to have that option. 

To get through it, I took Eva for lots of walks around the neighborhood before the weather got too chilly. It was great for exercise and for Eva's early jaundice. Not to mention how restorative getting some fresh fall air can be. I will never forget the first of these walks. It was a weekend and Matt was home with us. We strapped Eva into the Moby cloth wrap I had and set out into the September sun to introduce her to the neighborhood and to the world. 

We stopped and said hello to many neighbors and I can remember holding Matt's hand as he walked Brady alongside us and looking at my new little family and knowing that we weren't yet complete. Someone was missing. I didn't know if we'd have one or four more children or when they would arrive, but I knew it wasn't meant to just be us.

It was a warm feeling to have, to know there would be more love to share someday down the road. 

Then a warmer feeling over took me and brought me back to my present situation.  THIS feeling was an actual warm feeling, almost hot. It was paired with a sound. A squirty and wet sound. Then came the smell...

My little precious baby blew a load out her butt so foul and so massive that it ended up dripping down her legs and of course, all over me as she was in that Moby wrap attached to my chest. 

Matt and I just about died laughing. We still laugh about that two years later! Another shirt of mommy's in the garbage and another poop story to pack away to embarrass her with when she's older!