Wednesday, July 22, 2009

On our own

This past Monday was my first day home with the little guy all by myself. We did pretty well... the things I thought might go wrong didn't and the things I never expected to go wrong did.

For instance, the little G (his first bloggy nickname) and I headed out to a class at the hospital where he was born...basically it is a class for infant development and massage and although he is super young, it was a goal of mine to get out of the house. Also, I tend to be a bit skittish about things like that, so I knew I had to treat going to the class like ripping off a bandaid and just do it or else I would be stuck forever just sitting in my house too afraid to go to the class. Yes, I'm weird like that.

Anyway, we made it all the way to the hospital and then parked and got inside at exactly 10:00, but there was a group of geriatrics checking in at the reception desk with one of their kind and so it took 10 minutes before I got to talk to the octogenarian receptionist to find out she had no idea what class I was talking about. She looked it up on her handy dandy cheat sheet and called a number and left a message that I was there looking for a class and suggested I step aside and wait.

Pretty soon there were three of us in the lobby with infants and we figured we were all there for the same thing so we went to an area of the lobby and sat down and waited together...but no one ever came. So finally, one mother went back up to the desk to find out the status and another mother called some magic number she apparently had been storing away in case of emergency (why she didn't call right away was beyond me) and when she hung up said that someone was on their way down. Seriously...if you have a number to call, why wait 15 minutes to decide to call it??

So we waited even longer and eventually someone did come down apologizing profusely and saying that class that day had been cancelled for a staff meeting and that since it is a drop in class there was no way to notify people. I pointed out that they could have taken it off the calendar on the website, and she said 'yes, we're working on that'.

Sigh.

So I told her I had another random question and explained that it was my first day by myself and that I had left the house with only $3 to my name so I was wondering if there was an ATM in the building. She said there was and then paused and offered to get me a parking voucher. I agreed, thankfully, and she told me she might be a while because her office was in another building but to just sit tight.

So sit tight I did...for 20 minutes!! Finally she returned with the voucher and we were on our way.

So there you go...and example of something that I would have expected to go mostly-to-plan that ended up in the crapper on day one.

BUT, in speaking of crappers, something I was prepared for to go wrong went right...that would be the use of the G Diaper. If you recall, we were going to try the G Diaper system because it is more environmentally friendly and is a nice compromise between the hassle of cloth diapers and the never ending landfill contribution of a disposable.

We held off on using the G Diapers until after the little guy's umbilical cord fell off and since that happened on Saturday, I declared Monday the start day.

I am pleased to report that we have been doing rather well with the G's. They are very easy to use; no where near as confusing as I thought they might be and clean-up is pretty much a cinch. Plus they are super cute and have a 'G' on them which makes our little G think that his super-cool parents went out and splurged on monogrammed diaper covers :)

However, and this is a BIG HOWEVER...I will say that it is imperitive that everyone. in. the. house. know how to use the G Diapers. Because while I had a fairly successful first day on my own with the baby...once daddy got home it was a different story. I don't want to divulge too much lest I completely bruise his ego, but I will leave it at this equation:

Misinformed father + Flushable G Diaper + Old House = buckets of toilet water raining down into our kitchen through the pot lights, frantic calls to the plumber, and possible replacement of the kitchen ceiling.

And that's all I have to say about that.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, I can only imagine how to fill in the holes on the gdiaper story, and all possiblities aren't good ones. :)

    Good for you for getting out of the house! I didn't get out on my own until she was three months. Seriously, I had no clue (granted I had surgery, but still). My first trip with Eric was to Babies R Us, and even that made me a nervous wreck.

    I've noticed that I stop every woman with a baby younger than Emmeline and say good job just for getting out of the house...it's harder than it sounds!

    Good job!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my, the g diaper story sounds horrifying (and will be really hilarious later).

    The hospital could have at least posted a sign in the waiting room about the class cancellation!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congratulations on your adorable new little one! (a big little guy, though, no?)

    Just wanted to say that we made a similar mistake with the gdiaper -- only I was the one (not my husband) who didn't follow directions with the swishy wand. I love the concept, but we have dual-flush toilets that don't have the same oomph; after that episode, we decided to just do a combination of seventh generation and bumgenius cloth.

    Sounds like you're a pretty brave and capable mom! I'm impressed that you left the house so soon. I was basically a homebody for the first 10 weeks.

    Congrats, again.

    ReplyDelete