10 Things I Learned in Tolly's First Month

1. Watching a man care for his child, consistently, compassionately, and steadfastly is the most amazing thing in the universe. Forget all that fire burn, water run thing. THIS is the stuff. Falling in love with husband all over again. 

2. Babies should not be allowed to get sick. Ever. It should be against the rules of the universe. 

3. The cat thinks we brought a large kitten home. He tries repeatedly to groom this poor kitten who is not getting groomed enough (I restrain myself from licking my child’s head). I try to convince the cat that the baby still needs his scalp down the road. The cat is skeptical.
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4. Sleep deprivation + Hormones make you laugh and cry about the most nonsensical things. EVERYTHING is funny at certain points. And EVERYTHING is tragic at others. So, I have basically become a teenager again. 

5. It’s a strange feeling when someone (nurse with oxygen tube) is making your baby hysterical and upset but it’s for a good reason (so he doesn’t run out of oxygen, duh). You are torn between gratitude that he will be better and THE OVERWHELMING FEELING that you want to punch that someone, grab baby, run away, hide in cave. You restrain yourself, because see: gratitude, see: agricultural revolution; see: civilization; but the feeling is strong. 

6. The brain learns to become more organized and accomplish 10x more tasks in the hour stretches baby’s asleep. Or the brain shuts down completely, and you stare at baby and/or wall in blissful catatonia while time ticks away like the jerk it is. You never know which one you’ll get. But -- baby eyelashes! 

7. Staring at one’s baby NEVER gets old. It triggers intense cuteness or panic attacks. Most of our conversations with Leo go like this: “See what he did? Did you see that cute thing that he did? He did the same thing five minutes ago! But it’s still cute! And he has eyes! And ears! And look, he did the thing again! The thing was DONE AGAIN! OMG IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO THE THING? IS THE THING NORMAL? SHOULD HE DO IT THIS OFTEN? IS HE SICK? IS HE ALIVE? ASK GOOGLE!” These conversations are decisively less engaging when you are not the parent/grandparent of the child. We apologize in advance. The conversations will continue until further notice. 

8. Oh, and don’t ask Google. As we learned, ask Dara Gor. Our sanity made it through the first month very much because of her. Google, however, tried to destroy our sanity by convincing us that Tolly has very rare forms of every disease ever shown on Dr. House. 

9. Creativity abounds! We have an ongoing story about Captain Tolly and his heroic expedition to the North Pole to rescue the crew of “Terror” and “Erebus” and find the Northwest Passage. This is the only way bath time happens at the moment. At the moment, Tolly is writing a letter to the Queen, which shall be carried to her by his magical pet seal that can also fly. I make AWESOME seal noises, btw. I think they are the main draw for the insanely cute audience. 

10. Baby carriers. BABY CARRIERS. Baby Carriers are the single most useful tool in our baby arsenal. The only reasons these words are making it on the computer screen are because baby carrier. Also, the only reason I ate this morning.

Bonus #11: If you stare at baby long enough (see 7), you will realize he looks like all of your relatives AND people fully unrelated to you. Because, I guess, cosmos.
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We are happy, and so in love.