God's a Woman

I’m pretty sure God is a woman. I found it weird that God would want to “count the hairs on my head” as a church pastor preached once when I was little. This sounded boring and pointless. Fast forward to me having a newborn. Breastfeeding is a lengthy process that happens continuously at first. So I found myself counting the hairs on my son’s head. If there were a lot I wouldn’t bother and would probably stick to easier countable parts, toes: 10, ears: 2, nose: 1 (and it’s very cute). But unfortunately Solly has that newborn “I was born with hair and now I’ve given it up a week later” look. I don’t know why newborns lose their hair other than the fact that the outside world is extremely stressful. Womb to air is like going from a 24/7 spa to needing to cry to get all basic needs met. Anyway, this anecdote proves my point that God is a woman and must have had boobs. The ONLY time you’d be doing something so continually monotonous as to want to count hairs on a head is while you’d be breastfeeding. God’s a woman. I rest my case.

Let’s move on to the 6+ week mark.

As one of my students put it, “What was just a life bubble for 5 weeks has suddenly popped open.” So true. Up until 6 weeks, the baby can’t really be entertained by anything because he is not seeing or sensing much. And we have a kiddo who won’t take a pacifier which made these weeks hard when he was fussy and you’re trying to sooth him.

Now when he’s fussy, we have (drum roll please), SONGS AND BOOKS! And with a tiny attention span for songs and books comes a tiny (second drum roll please) SMILE! I’m pretty boring in the realm of drugs - haven’t taken them much recreationally, but definitely did for the C section. Let me tell you. That smile that new babies have is like oxycodone. It zens you out and you just want more. It seriously messes with your brain chemistry and makes you do stupid stuff you’d never do before the baby smiled. I will sing till midnight, forget to shower, miss my nightly snack time (this is huge), to get a second, third, fourth fix of baby smile. It’s scary good. It’s caused me to rummage through the dusty song file in my brain. The only ones that work are the ones you know three verses deep. I have Disney to thank for this. I grew up in the Little Mermaid/Aladdin/Lion King/Beauty and the Beast generation (the cusp of Gen X and Millenial: which some call the “oregon trail generation”). Thank GOD I can sing every verse of every song from these four animated musicals. I thought my musical theatre knowledge would buy me more smiles. A few yes, but my memorization just isn’t that deep. There’s one other song that’s provided a nice repetitive platform to education Solly on the people he should know in this world. And it’s not the Muffin Man, though we borrow his tune. People who have made the song list have included Ms. Duckworth: “do you know the congresswoman, the congresswoman, the congresswoman, do you know the congresswoman her name is Tammy Duckworthandshewasthefirstamputeesenatorandalsofirstwomanallowedtobreastfeedonthesenatefloor.”

My final insight for this blog (baby weeks 6-10ish), is a Breastaurant one. That’s what i tell Solly he’s coming to eat at. It’s always open for business like a 24 hour diner, but there’s only one item on the menu. As Solly has noticed lately, he has arms and hands. He doesn’t know they are his, but he has noticed them flying around especially when they smack his face. When eating at the Breastaurant, he has begun flinging them like that damn fly that thinks if he slams his body into the window pane in enough places, he’ll reach the outdoors. Sometimes Solly flings his arms and hands under my armpit, which makes me laugh and temporarily causes him to test the stretching power of the Breastaurant, which is not enjoyable for its owner. Sometimes this gets him kicked him out. But he’s quickly let back in. Because after all, if Solly wasn’t around the Breastaurant would go out of business.