mommy amnesia

as it turns out, i've completely forgotten what it's like to have a newborn. i was assaulted by this realization when i met alyssa's son, huxley, a few days before avery was born. i was afraid to move with hux in my arms for fear of breaking him and when he started to cry, i had no idea what to do except hand him back to his mother. i thought to myself, "oh no...what am i going to do when I'M the mother?"

10 days later, i've remembered how to hold newborns and am slowly remembering what to do when she's crying. but i'm constantly trying to think back to when ben was a newborn and cannot for the life of me remember what he was like.

after the first few nights of avery screaming her tiny lungs out for a couple hours at a time, tim was like, "something is wrong with this baby - we should put her in her bed to let her cry it out." i'm shaking my head, "i don't think you do that with newborns..." we remember ben being a "good sleeper" but i think that was a little while into his life - not in the first week, right? and when i saw my friend, rachel, the other day, she asked, "does avery grunt in her sleep like ben did?" i was like, "did ben grunt in his sleep?" she replied, "yeah - you couldn't sleep in the same room as him because he made so much noise." huh. yeah, she does make a lot of noise in her sleep. i guess that's the same.

i started reading back through old blog posts from june and july of 2009 and found some helpful stories about ben being fussy in the evenings which really encouraged me that there's nothing wrong with this girlie. also, many posts about being so "busy" with my one infant - now with the 2 year old in tow, those stories make me smile.