I have a little man that is turning four in three days. I still remember the first time I held him, not sure how I was going to handle parenting a little boy, but excited to feel the weight of him in my arms. For the first twenty four hours of his life his ears were completely and perfectly circular, like little quarters stuck to the side of his head. He was the heaviest of my babies, coming in at 7lbs 9oz. I had hoped he wouldn’t be a C-Section but after his heart rate dropped one time they decided that they weren’t going to let me try anymore. I was disappointed, but once the decision was made, I was eager to get it done. But I kept getting pushed later and later until finally he was born in the evening. 6:52 pm. I was exhausted.

That first night around 1 in the morning Tim handed me Big E so that I could feed him. Our visitors had all left and the only thing to do was to get the suitcase out of the car. As I was feeding the baby, Tim went down to get the bag. And for a long time he didn’t come back. I mean a long time. I waited and waited. I was holding Big E in my arms in such a way that I could not reach the call button to contact the nurse, so I sat there waiting… and worrying. Two hours later Tim walked back into the room with the suitcase behind him. What happened?!? I practically yelled at him and he stared at me with a look of surprise. “What do you  mean?” he said.

“You’ve been gone for nearly two hours!!!” I said, glaring back at him as I passed him the baby.

The look of confusion on his face was priceless.

“What do you mean? I just went to get the suitcase!” He had gone to the parking garage and gotten into the front seat of the car. He closed his eyes (he thought he was doing little more than blinking.) He opened his eyes, got the suitcase and came back to the room. He had no idea that he had fallen asleep in the car for two hours!!

That story always makes me smile. We were so tired. I think that’s the thing that has surprised me most about parenthood. I had no idea you could be so tired for so long and still (semi) manage to function! I hear that one day you get sleep again. I sure hope so, because I was so tired the other day I almost put deodorant on my toothbrush.