New Post-Baby Strategy

I am now trying to get back into some sort of regular blogging. Clearly, it hasn’t been happening. Neither has the journaling I’ve been meaning to do on the first few weeks and months of post-baby life. I’m not comfortable writing much about the baby or posting photos–I write novels, not memoirs, and I’m convinced people who write novels do it because they don’t want readers to know what details are personal, intimate glimpses into their lives.  Novelists have some sense of privacy.

Anyway, I would like to make myself both record details of these weeks and also keep up with my blog. And I don’t really have more than about 45 seconds of spare time a day to do it. So I’m going to try, everyday, to jot down five random things in my head. Maybe about baby, maybe about other things.

Today’s five:

1) A couple of weeks ago, my husband took the baby outside while he was crying, hoping to settle him. In the middle of the wailing, our neighbor came outside because she thought her cat was in a fight.

2) We’ve been playing a game with the kids where we make bets on the baby. Sample question: Will the next sound the baby makes be like a) a pig, b) a bird, c) a sheep?

3) The baby’s still not sure which body parts might have milk. Elbows, shoulders, biceps–all seem possible. Occasionally after a feeding, especially at night, I’ll feel his soft, warm breath an inch or so from my face, then–whump–he’s attached himself like a suckerfish to my jawbone.

4) We saw a fantastic movie at Sidewalk Film festival this past weekend. Bag of Hammers. It’s as good as any movie I’ve ever seen. Highly recommend. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.

5) Our schnoodle turned two years old in August, and we had a party. That involved a sock cake–everyone contributed one sock, my stepson arranged them artfully on a cake platter, then we lit a candle. The schnoo got to choose which sock he wanted to steal. Then he got to eat noodles and bacon from a bowl on the table. He also unwrapped some bones.