it's a bayyyyyyy-beeeeeeeeeeee!

look! a baby! she's even my pseudo mini-me, and the most difficult and uncomfortable thing i had to do was shell out for a transatlantic plane ticket.

i got to spend a week 'job shadowing' my sister-in-law and 8 week old niece-- minus the breastfeeding and nappy changing. kind of like my brother, i'm still; "building up to it".

and so we all surfaced from our beds (at different times, mind you) to a groundhog day of; feeding, burping, cuddling, jiggling, changing, napping; feeding, burping, cuddling, jiggling, changing, napping;...drinking wine.

in addition to learning the ins and outs of the labour, hearing a great story about projectile poo flying out of her bottom (baby, not s-i-l) across the changing table, i got loads of practice doing the infant macarena; sway, sway, lunge, lunge, grand plie in second, repeat until lactic fatigue. yep. it's a lot of work, and there really is no per diem option.

"you'd be a great mummy/you're a natural/look how at ease you are with her". sure, you can take one look at a kenyan and know he's going to set records, win medals and suddenly obtain U.S. citizenship. i'm just not convinced that this means you can cherrypick a winning breeder.

i suppose one of the handy things about having a sibling is that can they can act as the proverbial canary in a mine shaft-- fortunately after seven days, i hadn't keeled over in my bird cage.

a "jackass" baby story

midgets jumping into ceiling fans, colonic irrigation with blenders and a geriatric's supermarket trolley derby around parking garages are just a few of my favourite things.

so when an unmarried, childless, slowly re-forming comittment averse (i have managed to keep a labrador alive for over a year) female is responsible for co-facilitating a gathering dedicated solely to the recently knocked up, the experience quickly becomes an exercise in anxiety regulation.

in order to fully establish an atmosphere conducive to celebrating 'soon-to-be-screaming-and-incontinent-100%-dependent-upon-you' life, one must first set the mood. so, rather than resorting to the ever popular pink/blue/"we don't want to know yellow" colour palette, a simple black and orange provides a natural backdrop for decorating with both dremel and craftsman products (and can be re-used later at halloween).

now traditionally, showers require organized group "fun" for both 'soon-to-be...' and guests to enjoy-- which means playing with safety pins, toilet paper, and other random paraphernalia from the storage closet and kitchen junk drawer. however, in keeping with the current theme, friends and family are able to mark the occasion with a few rounds of spin the breast milk bottle, pin the cracked nipple on the engorged boob, and a rollicking game of old fashioned fetus pinata. energy levels are thus sustained by an ongoing buffet; placenta pie, mucous plug milkshakes, and the crowd pleaser, afterbirth bruschetta.

finally; presents. it should be noted that this registry is sponsored by johnny knoxville and beatrix potter.

so....i changed my first nappy

no, my curry eating compulsion has not resulted in explosive episodes of the lower extremities, nor have i birthed a little one, and my parents are not yet at the age where they are wearing super absorbent adult undies with leak proof elasticated edges. oh, and i am mostly definitely not in posession of a needy boyfriend that requires his bum wiping/food chewed, although i am quite accomplished at both of these skills. rather, i was initiated into nappy changing 101 ("diapers" for those west of the atlantic) at work.

it was a boy! i should get bonus points for the 'pee in face/up your nose' hazard. for the resident counselor who was "supervising" my technique, i provided about 3 minutes of low quality entertainment just negotiating the little sticky tabs that hold everything together (and in). short of using a hand held packaging tape dispenser, there was no way this little dude was going to be 'vacuum sealed' into the low slung, hipster style nappy silhouette that i was constructing. i do think that this is an untapped market that GAP/abercrombie should get in on.

to continue with the theme of expelled bodily fluids; i also fed (and sniffed), (ok huffed, im a self-confessed baby huffer) a 2 month old. after i had helped him fill his belly, he changed his mind and decided that it was in fact preferable that he empty the contents of his tiny body: all. down. my. cleavage. (with an added trickling feature). i was born again and baptized with baby barf. praise the puke. unfortunately, 'little guy' had also been running a temperature off and on for the past week, so the nurse decided we needed to "draw blood and run some tests" (translation on either side of the atlantic: "oh shit, this is going to really hurt. and i might cry in front of another grown up that i'm not even related to or sleeping with"). unfortunately for him, it meant a needle being inserted into the bottom of his foot. unfortunately for me, it meant holding him close enough to achieve optimal screaming 'his mouth to my eardrum' range (probably good that i couldnt see what was going on over the other side of his heaving body). before the nurse even got the needle out, or had warmed up his foot to locate a vein, i was in need of holding. this was going to hurt; bad. and he didnt have any four letter words at his disposal to express how much he hated us for doing this to him.

i can see that childbirth is obviously not going to be all cupcakes and butterflies.