"Never leave your child unattended - always keep your hand on baby to ensure safety"
That's the general safety warning on most baby products, such as a baby tub, and a change pad. It essentially means never to walk away from your child, so whatever you are doing - be it open a new diaper, or grab the baby lotion, you must always have one hand on baby. That's what life is like when you become a parent too.
No mater what we are doing from here on out, we will always have a hand on baby - whether physically or metaphorically.
Physically: My chores and tasks are scheduled around baby now (and poorly I might add - I'm hoping afternoon nap time becomes a little more scheduled as days go by, because waiting for a nap time that never comes to start dinner is making me a bad wife). As well, the kid eats a lot... like a lot, and constantly. She's a bit of an over acheiver in her weight category, and I spend the bulk of my day, making, warming, and washing bottles - often I'm trying to accomplish things while holding a bottle in my daughters mouth, which means I've gotten very good at the chin prop while I reach for something.
Metaphorically: Running out to get groceries now becomes an ordeal in which we have to bundle Inara up in the car seat, and bring the stroller (or carry the car seat around the store), or - Ben goes alone and I stay home with pumpkin. Everything we do includes Inara in some way these days - which I'm not complaining about, please don't get me wrong - I love every minute of it, but it has been a bit of a learning curve to always figure out how we are getting munchkin from A to B with us these days. For example - it's Christmas season, and time for us to pick out a real tree from a lot and bring it home with us. It was such a simple errand last year, and we had our tree and headed home in 20 minutes. However this year, we have a problem. We have to fold down the back seat in our hatchback to bring the tree home, and we can't put the seats down with Inara's car seat in the car - so that means she can't come with - meaning I can't either, and I can't help Ben pick out our tree this year. That also means Ben has to carry and load the tree in the car by himself - which is difficult. So now we need help - either for someone to watch Inara for us so we can get the tree, or for someone to go with Ben to help him out. Bringing home a Christmas Tree - with one hand on baby. Tonight when Ben gets home, his dad is going to go with him to get a tree, and then Mom and Dad are going to baby sit for us so Ben can go finish our Christmas shopping. Our first night away from Inara is to run errands - welcome to parenthood :)
This is what I'm meaning by one hand on baby - this tiny (okay maybe not so tiny) bundle of love has effectively rearranged how we do everything these days! Watching a movie downstairs comes with a baby monitor and lots of pausing, a shower in the morning means taking Inara's bathtub out of the tub first, and going to bed means waking up at least twice before the morning alarm goes off. Not to mention, I can't tell you how many times I had to choose between a shower or eating - because there is never time for both before she wakes up (and forget drying your hair!). I also tend to eat my "breakfast" at 2pm while trying to burp a baby on my shoulder with one hand, and the other hand trying to bring my spoon of cold food to my mouth without dropping any on my small child.
No one is kidding when they say children change everything - it's so very true. It's a hell of a ride, and I'm loving everything about it! Of course we're failing at a few things - no one does parenting perfectly, and there have been times when the chores and cleaning get put to the side for tummy time, and doctor's appointments, but there's nothing wrong with that in my eyes. In some cultures the new parent moves in with their mom for the first 2 months just to get by, so with that in mind, I'm content with the dust on my bookshelves.
In the time I wrote this, I fed Inara a bottle, changed her, and picked her up twice. Now she needs to be changed again - but don't worry, I'll keep my hand on her on the change pad :)
