3 weeks

Kalina is 3 weeks old today! We celebrated with several notable events, including the diaper change that wouldn't end (think Energizer bunny) and a great night of sleep (5 1/2 hours only interrupted once!). But there's more:

In an event that was very liberating for me, Kalina had her first bottle! Which is actually her second because she had a little bit of formula out of sheer desperation at the hospital (one of those middle-of-the-night-nurse-worried-us-into-it things). But we're counting this one as her first. I was ever so slightly horrified at 1.) the quantity she drank, 2.) the speed at which she drank it and 3.) the fact that she ate again just an hour and a half later. My question, then, is why am I not losing more weight?

Which leads to the second event: my first clothes-shopping trip since before Kalina was born, as part of my quest to become a "normal" person once again. Let me start by saying that my expectations were in line. After all, I'm still wearing maternity pants and some maternity shirts (not out of choice, believe me!) and I contentedly shopped a size or two up without bemoaning it too much.

Old Navy, my store of choice, was having an amazing sale. Perfectly good clothes were selling for $3! I couldn't believe my luck. When Baby was born, so was a new, tighter budget (to match my old, tight clothes), and $3 was right up my alley. I loaded my arms while my perfect baby slept under the watchful eye of my patient husband.

That is, until I went into the dressing room. I look like the Michelin man with stretch marks. New clothes didn't help; in fact, I think this was the first time I've left a store glad to not be buying anything. I preferred the clothes on my back and in my closet. The realization left me unsettled, and brought with it an increasingly familiar sense of sad humor.

The good part about the experience is that I'm going to make a killing on a new line of t-shirts. They'll have phrases such as "Baby fat" and "Body by Baby" printed on them so people know the change is temporary and for a good reason, not just because the wearer ate too much ice cream (or not only because the wearer ate too much ice cream).

In other news, we've started cloth diapering! I may write more about it later, but for now we'll leave it that although (or maybe because) Matt and I actually enjoy the challenge of diaper changes, Kalina requires 15 minutes of pacifier/jiggling therapy after each one.

I think she's smiled at me a couple times, in response to my smiles, but it's tough to prove. I'm debating whether to make it official in the baby book or wait until I can be sure. Then again, I also doubted labor.

And she even almost seems to be on a tentative schedule we can all live with (subject to change, of course).

Who'da thought that 3 weeks later we'd all be doing well, with a manageable level of chaos?