Three weeks

"So, how is it going?" people ask, and the other day my sister texted me, "When you have time, let me know how you are doing with the whole being a mom thing!"  Now, keep in mind that I call, e-mail, and text with my sister pretty regularly, so it's not like I've been keeping her in suspense for three weeks, but she, along with quite a few others, genuinely want to know how parenting is going.

I've been a mama for three weeks and two days, not that I'm counting.  Zarya is growing fast and I don't want to just survive this time and then in a few months realize I've missed her newborn stage.  Side note: she was weighed last week and came out at 10 pounds, 8 ounces (for my European friends, that's 4.8 kilos), so her days of being a wee little newborn are already over.  We've got a big little newborn on our hands...

Most of the time I feel like I'm just trying to figure out what to do - is it time for her to eat?  Do I really need to change her clothes after she spits up or just let them dry on her?  Why isn't she napping during naptime?  How can she have possibly pooped again?!

I have moments when I think that she's the cutest, sweetest, best baby ever and I have moments when I just want her to shut up NOW.  My favorite times are when I'm burping her, strange but true.  She snuggles into my shoulder and is awake, full, and - after letting out a giant belch - is quite happy.  I've discovered that infants are almost always asleep, eating, or crying, so when I get those rare awake AND happy moments, I seize them!  A few of her favorite things include baths and having clothes changed (odd, I know), so those are usually fun times, too.

Nice moments like this sometimes ...

... quickly turn into this...

... and we all love moments like this.

So in summary, it is going pretty well.  My days are now measured in five cycles of Zarya eating, having some awake time, and sleeping.  I'm trying to be realistic about my goals for the day - keeping myself and her fed, clothed, and clean, plus maybe one or two other things (like writing a blog post), qualifies as a highly productive day.  I've figured out that one outing a day is our maximum for right now, and that's okay.  She's a little trooper when it comes to traveling (she actually really likes her car seat), but it's too tiring for both me and her to go out more than once.  I am grateful for maternity leave (I get three months of leave) so I am not also feeling pressured to do translation work right now.  After a couple more months I know I'll be eager to get back into it, but I don't think I could manage to do much right now even if I tried.  But for now I'm sticking to things like "successfully took a nap today" as my productivity measures.