Major accomplishment!
Brennan and I went on an outing all by ourselves for the first time today! This is a big deal... for the first time ever, without Blair's help, I got Brennan situated in the carseat, attached the carseat to the base in the car, drove somewhere, detached the carseat from the base, and went inside. Then I did it all in reverse a couple hours later. This may not sound like a major accomplishment if you've never had to try it but trust me, it's a huge deal. We went to the free Mother-Baby class at the hospital where he was born. You can go to up to four of them, and I think I'm definitely going to try to go three more times. It wasn't necessarily the best time in the world or anything, but I'm seriously high on the sense of accomplishment for just getting out. The other mothers weren't horribly obnoxious, as I'd feared, but they were definitely more worrying and measuring and freaking out types than I am. It was kind of nice in a snotty way for me to see people with seven-week-old babies struggling with issues that I have down already at three weeks. I'm sure I'll be eating those words soon, because nothing is ever actually figured out with babies, but for now I'm going to enjoy it. It was nice to take part in an adult conversation, even if it was all about babies. It was also nice to be in a room full of other women who are whipping out their boobs in public at random intervals. The nurse/lactation consultant who was there said that 3-6 weeks is the best time to start pumping and introducing a bottle if you're ever going to do it, so that was reassuring. Blair's mom is coming to visit soon and has offered to babysit while Blair and I go on a date, and damn does that sound wonderful, so I'd like to be able to leave her with at least one feeding's worth of milk. All the moms and the nurse went nuts over Brennan's hair, and I always love to hear people tell me how wonderful my baby is so that was fun. The only problem was that as the class was wrapping up, Brennan decided he was hungry again even though he had nursed less than an hour ago. Yay clusterfeeding. So I asked the nurse if the room was booked anytime soon after and she said no, so I just stayed there and nursed him. And nursed him, and nursed him... every time I tried to take him off the breast and strap him in the carseat, he freaked out and acted hungry again. I did this for forty minutes, then finally decided he was just going to have to cry his way to the other building where he was going to have blood drawn for his newborn screening (a bunch of routine tests for genetic disorders, none of which he has any risk factors for). I strapped him in, and he cried like crazy. I put the diaper bag on my back and got all ready to go, him screaming all the while, then made my way down the hall to the exit. As I got there I noticed he wasn't screaming anymore and looked into the carseat, where he was sleeping like a champ. I guess the swinging motion of the carseat in my hand was soothing? Anyway, he was so fast asleep that he barely even cried when they pricked his foot to take blood, and he's still conked out as I'm writing this. Silly guy. And a very valuable piece of information for Mom and Dad: swinging in carseat equals sleep. We will remember this.