A Letter to Our Baby at 3 Months

Dear Miles,

You are three months old today and what a wonderful, exciting, exhausting, awesome time it has been. We have watched you grow and nearly double in weight, we heard your first attempts at laughing, and soaked in all your smiles.

We likely won't be forgetting your biggest milestones--the first time you held your head up on your own or held a bottle by yourself (mostly...daddy was there to catch it) or when you looked at us with a giant smile and a little gurgle-giggle.

But, there will come a day when we forget some of the small things, like when you threw up all over mommy in a restaurant or the time daddy wore you strapped to him while we shopped in Target (you loved it).

Time moves on and with it our memory fades. You won't remember any of these first few years, so it is our job to absorb it all for you.

Mommy loved when you fit to her like a warm puzzle piece, and daddy had fun taking a bath with you. Your hands are so small and when you wrap your little fingers around ours, we become further wrapped around yours.

You'll never remember a time when you hated being changed, and now you smile as soon as we get you out of your crib for the morning diaper change. You love to babble and talk with daddy in the morning, telling him all about your night in your crib.

Your skin is smooth and soft and perfect, which makes mommy jealous. Your toes are nearly tinier than daddy's pinky fingernail. Your eyes fluctuate between brown and blue, but mommy not-so-secretly hopes you get her brown eyes.

You smile with your whole body, and we hope you never lose that quality. Your eyes light up when you see us in morning, which makes our day a little brighter. The "cranky hours" after work are the worst, but it is also a wonderful excuse to cuddle.

We often wonder how you got so big so fast, and everyone always says they want time to slow down with their kids, but for us, we want to see you grow up. Your personality is budding and it is a beautiful thing...we love how tiny you are, but we would never wish for you to stay small forever because it is too much fun to see you become the person you are going to be.

Our lives, while more challenging and tiring, are better with you in them. Keep up the smiles and learn to laugh and you are golden, kid.

Love you,
Mama and Dada

The Day I Battled My First Diaper Blowout

I remember--and can still smell--this special day very clearly.

Miles was about 8 weeks old (yeah, I didn't have to deal with a poopy diaper blowout until 8 weeks, woo-hoo!) and we were on the way home from the chiropractor.

Just before I left the doctor's office, I started to smell the funk emanating from his diaper. It wasn't too bad, yet. His face was red and he was grunting. Miles was still working on getting some of that green nastiness out, so when the receptionist offered a room in the office to change him, I politely declined, "No, we are only 15 minutes from home. We'll be okay."

I smiled down at Miles. He grunted again. Oh, how wrong I was.

As I was driving, baby decided it was a good time to scream. Loudly. After I cranked the music up to bass-pounding levels, Miles calmed down and, believe it or not, fell asleep.

By the time we made it home, I had forgotten about the diaper (mommy brain at it's best). I let him sleep in the car seat at my feet for about 5 or 10 minutes before he started to get fussy.

As I started to unstrap him, the smell hit me.

It was bad, very bad.

I wrapped my hands around him and came in contact with poop--I might have gagged a little.

I rushed him to the changing table and that's when the full out screaming started. I was stripping wet, stained clothes off my baby, and all the while he wouldn't stop wiggling. Of course, my husband happened to be out of the house during this time (trust me, he heard the full and detailed account as soon as he stepped in the door).

I finally got the clothes and diaper off of him, only to be left with a lot of poop. All over. I plopped a still screaming baby in the tub and gave him the quickest and most thorough bath I could.

Then I realized I didn't have a towel nearby. So now I had a very cold, wet, and squirming baby in my arms while I tried to wrangle a towel.

Finally, I get Miles in a new diaper and clothes (yeah, Miles is still bawling). I place him in his crib to clean up the changing pad and mess I had made.

Then it hits me: I hadn't even started to clean out the car seat.

This is about the time I wished I had two more hands and could be in more than one place at a time (cue missing husband).

A lot of fabric cleaner and paper towels later, the car seat was clean (with a faded poop stain).

All there was left was to calm an unhappy baby. I popped a bottle in that kid's mouth, and voila!! Happy baby.

It felt like Miles had been screaming for hours. And this all went down in 20 minutes.

Something about screaming and poop makes time slow down.

Poop: 0 Mommy: 1

Postpartum Depression: the Elephant in the Room

You come to visit. I smile, you laugh. You coo at the baby. You ask how much I am loving motherhood. I respond with a tiny smile and tired eyes, "We're good. It's hard."

I notice your slightly furrowed brow or strange look at my curt answer. I immediately change my expression to a wider, forced smile and respond that we couldn't be luckier to have such an easy, healthy baby. You relax a bit and go back to playing with the baby.

But inside, I am struggling. You can't see it because I hide it. I can't hide it from my husband, even though I try to most of the time. I break down and cry a couple times a week. It can be from simple things, such as not feeling up to cooking dinner. Or bigger issues, such as not fitting in any of my clothes and feeling depressed that I can't wear anything.

The truth is that I am wading through mild postpartum depression. At least, that's what I think it is. I don't know for sure because I haven't been to a doctor or consulted a therapist, but it feels lonely. And sad. I don't feel like that all the time, but a few times a day I wonder about how I am feeling and if it is normal.

At first, I blamed it on my hormones calming down after birth. But now, 11 weeks later, I don't think I can blame it on those hormones anymore.

No one talks about it because it's uncomfortable. Who wants to talk to someone dealing with depression? What's worse is that many people dismiss your feelings as something you will get over. You just need time, they say. Sure, in time, I know I will go back to my normal self, but for those women who are fighting a bigger demon than me, it could never feel the same unless they get some help.

And maybe I will need help. I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does, I know that I have people in my life who will support that decision.

That all-consuming love for your child doesn't always happen right away. It didn't for me. I was confused and overwhelmed by the fact that I had just become a mother. I know I had nine months to prepare, but it wasn't enough time. And there are still times when I am slightly sleep deprived and Miles won't let me put him down, I don't always feel it. And that is deeply embarrassing to admit.

Then there are times when he looks up at me in the morning, and he smiles. He is starving and has a massive poopy diaper, but he sees me and he smiles. That warms my heart. I love my child and I love my husband. I love my family. But some days are hard. Two steps forward, one step back.

And that is what I wish you could see in our smiling photos. I want to be happy all the time. I want to feel this amazingly powerful love all the time. But sometimes I can't. A lot of times I just want to wallow and cry in a corner because this is harder than I ever imagined. Sometimes I want to cry in happiness at how wonderful Miles is--it's awesome to see his budding personality.

To any one of my friends who is also silently holding back, I have found that laughing is really a wonderful medicine. When Miles cries, I try to find something I can laugh at (laughing at your crying child is totally okay, in my opinion). The way his bottom lip juts out just before he starts to cry is just the cutest, and I smile or laugh at how ridiculous he is for crying because he can't get his own hand in his mouth.

Finding joy in the little things is helping. And day by day, I think my head emerges from underneath the dense fog.

I didn't think it would happen to me. But it did. So there's my big ol' elephant in the room.