My days as a Playboy Bunny

If there is anything I’m not, it’s a centerfold model. But for a couple days postpartum, I could have been.

** Dad: maybe now is a good time for you to not read... **

Since bleeding and tearing and a sore booty aren’t torture enough, Mother Nature keeps mothers rotund well after baby escapes the uterus. As a mother herself, you’d think she’d have a little compassion. Perhaps it’s biological birth control.

Reproducing is an ugly, swollen sticky note, reminding you to think twice before doing it again. ...And I haven’t even mentioned the flatulence yet.

My experience was unsightly:

* My fingers and toes felt like jelly rolls.
* My shoes didn’t fit.
* My thighs resembled Redwood trees.
* I wore my wedding ring on my pinkie.
* I put pictures of my ankles on milk cartons in hopes someone would recognize them and send them home.
* Five days postpartum, the lady in the nursing bra section of JCPenny’s asked me when I was due. Ouch.

I tried not to let it bother me. After all, I had a kid in the NICU and a house without running water. I had bigger fish to fry and no intention of not eating them. Diets would come later.

And then later happened.

About a week after our sojourn home, my body thinned out everywhere except my engorged and now plastic-looking looking chesticles. The width of my waist was thinner than that of my forearm, but I needed a 34-D braziere.

My nurse friend, Kyle, (who is a girl, not a boy and likes to tell people she had a sex change) said bodies swell once inflated with IV fluids like I had when I received the labor-inducing drug, pitocin. Note: the cankles.

After a few days, the body expels all those fluids and defies its natural state, she said, rendering Playboy bunnies where new moms are supposed to be.

How sinister is that? I finally look like Malibu Barbie, but I’m handcuffed with a husband (although awesome, but think how many free drinks I’d get if I could play the field??), a small child and a doctor’s note forbidding hibbity dibbity.

Like all good things, my post-baby bod didn’t last. I’m back to normal Katie-weight, just different shapes and sizes, i.e., the bowl full of jelly where my abdominals used to be.

I’m satisfied in this. The treadmill and I were never Facebook friends anyway.

Some women get really down on themselves, mourning their old bodies and contorting their new ones with control-top undergarments, butter-less diets and self-esteem below sea level.

I feel bad for them. I can understand the frustration. It helps to have a husband/partner obtuse to such benign beauty, someone like mine, someone more focused on changing our baby’s diaper than me trying to show off in a tight-fitting tank. He only noticed the obscenities I called “ankles” because I asked him to rub them so much. And he did. From the floor. Because sitting in chairs hurt his back to much.

Oh, memories.

Anyways, I’m more willing to show off my bod post-baby than before. Not because I’m particularly proud of it, but because no less than 74 medical professionals looked at my goods and reached their hands where even tampons don’t go. (TMI? Good. Remember that next time you leave the Prophylactics at home.)

But what about you and what about the other women? Are you proud of your new body? Ashamed? What did you do to reclaim it? Or are you too busy with housework/real work/breastfeeding/holiday gift wrapping to notice? Any good, mushy husband/partner stories to share? Or even better, got any really bad ones? I promise to throw cyber stones at the real assholes...

Don't pass on the pacifier

Remember how my child likes bouncing? Well he prefers his pacifier more. Or me less. Both are fine.

Yesterday, I forgot his blue binkie, leaving it home while running errands 40 miles away. The drive was fine, the little tyke made hardly a peep. But when I took him to my office, he got antsy.

Just pick up a pacifier at the store, my coworkers said. You’ll thank us later.

But I didn’t listen.

My child is an an angel. His second love to bouncing? His car seat. He won’t need one, I thought.

Note: if you find yourself in a similar situation, be ye not so stupid.

Bouncing at the office did the trick, but that didn’t last through lunch, a feeding and a trip to the Ol' Wal-Marts.

It started in the canned vegetable aisle, he squawking as I analyzed the spice severity in chili seasonings. Cole cried in the cart, so I held him.

He also cried when I held him, so we bounced.

I got a few stares and several smiles. One Chatty Woman even struck up a conversation about her own children, but amidst the screams, those conversations are complicated to carry. I smiled when her lips stopped moving, but truly, I missed every word.

And of course, in typical small-town fashion, I ran in to people I knew. Sigh. People who were so excited to meet little Cole, but then fast-pitched him back to me when his cries turned to a sweet symphony of jackhammers and car alarms. 

Still, I thought I could handle it. He cries. I bounce. This usually solves the problem. So I bounced my bawling baby in the cereal aisle, debating between regular flavor or honey nut.

Chatty Woman returned. In my attempts to hear her, I stuck the knuckle in his mouth. Perhaps it was from the ringing in my ears, but she sounded like she needed a Sucret and some salt water. Good thinking, Chatty Woman. Again, I heard not what she said other than “finger” and “germs” but I didn’t care. Frankly, I preferred my rioting infant.

Chatty Woman sauntered towards produce as I ducked into dairy, but Cole’s one-man fire alarm remained sounding.

Fine, I sighed, resigning myself to the looks, stares and although infrequent, a few glares. Let’s book-it to baby.

As if she were a mosquito attracted to my knock-off perfume, Chatty Woman reappeared, lips moving AGAIN, and me with my mouth open and free hand upturned. We’re headed to the pacifier section, I hollered over my shoulder, ignoring the niceties I should teach my son to observe.

I may take my time choosing brands of breakfast, but I made haste in the baby aisle. In fact, I didn’t even waste time paying for the pacifier before I opened it. Like I'd already made the purchase, I tore the packaging, swiped the nuk with a diaper wipe and quashed what sounded like the high-pitch of a screeching microphone.

I’m not sure if it was one second later or two, but instantly, his eyes closed.

I fastened Cole’s car seat belt immediately, a trick I’d learned earlier that day. Strap him in when he’s kinda asleep to avoid waking him when he’s really asleep.

Dear Crystal: I owe ya one.

Although the awkward glances subsided, I hadn’t erased them completely. I chose check-out No. 12 because the associate there looked like she mothered children and maybe even grandchildren of her own.

According to the look on her face, she had neither.

Baby's first er, uh second slumber party

Today, my husband has surgery.

The nearest hospital performing such a procedure is 100 miles away, so the little tyke is crashing at grandma's. It's his first slumber party since the NICU.

While I'm sure he won't notice our departure, i.e., he'll probably have more fun without us, I'm already teary about leaving him.

Please tell me this is normal and will go away.

If one night is tough, how will I handle summer camps and college?

How to swaddle a baby

Many hospitals likely teach this to new parents, but in case you never learned, here’s a trick to calm and soothe a crying baby. Or at least get one to sleep.

It's also nice because it keeps the little ones from scratching their faces. When I learn how to effectively file, trim or chew my sons nails, expect a post on that too. In the meantime, anyone have advice?

Anyways, swaddling a baby is like recreating the womb. My cousin calls it the “baby burrito.” My husband calls it the “baby straight jacket.” Either way, as the NICU occupational therapist explained, babies, especially premature ones, like the feeling of closeness. They want to know their boundaries, she said. It’s comforting.

Here’s how it works:

1). Using a receiving blanket or any small, thin throw, fold the top corner down to about the middle of the blanket.

2). Set baby on the blanket with his or her ears at the fold. Slide baby’s right hand into the folded corner.

3).  Pull that side of the blanket across baby’s body.

4). Tug tight and tuck the right side of the blanket under baby’s left side. 

 5). Pull the bottom of the blanket tight and towards baby’s left side. Tuck it beneath the first folded corner.

6). Slide baby’s left hand into the left folded corner. Pull the remainder of the blanket across baby’s body. Tuck the blanket under baby’s right side.

Presto.

Now go find a rocking chair and cuddle your happy baby :)