Things About Babies I Had Forgotten

It’s been almost 21 years since I was a stay at home mom and I had forgotten a few things. Now that I’m a stay-at-home nana it’s all coming back to me.

Things I had forgotten

1. I no longer have the luxury of uninterrupted writing time. I write a paragraph, change a diaper, write a paragraph, fix a bottle. Doesn’t do much for the flow of my thoughts but it keeps the baby happy!

2. The mess. Okay, so maybe I haven’t really forgotten how much mess a baby makes. I did have five, but I guess I repressed the memory of how much chaos one little person can create. You can’t walk five steps in any direction of my house without seeing bottles, diapers and baby paraphernalia.

3. Which reminds me of something else I had forgotten… how all the baby stuff totally takes over your house. This child has bassinets, baskets, swings, and do-dads galore!

And how the contraptions have changed. My babies had a wind up swing that rocked them about as long as it took them to get to sleep. Then I would rewind it, wake them up and repeat the process over and over. If I remember correctly I had bulging biceps in my right arm from winding up that swing.

My granddaughter’s swing plugs in, swings side to side, has rotating birdies that float overhead and with a touch of a button she can have either lullaby music, birdies tweeting, night sounds (crickets and frogs) or the ocean. Now that’s what I call advancements in technology!

4. How many diapers they can go through in a day. Did you know that they make diapers with a little stripe down the center of them that changes colors when the baby wets them? Who wants to leave a wet diaper on a baby? When I had children I could plead ignorance and say I didn’t know they were wet. No more. By the end of the day the Diaper Genie is running over.  Some inventor in a diaper factory is getting very rich.

5. Finally,I had forgotten the sweet smell of baby breath, the softness of their skin and hair. The amazing sound of their cooing. How tiny their little toes are.

I had forgotten what it felt like to fall in love again.

It’s wonderful and this nana is loving her new job.