I have held a very few babies in my life, for very short increments of time. And they were Big Babies. I realized sometime during my pregnancy that I had never actually held a newborn. I wasn’t so much scared by this fact as I was amused. As a person with (virtually) no baby experience, I thought it would be fun to share my awkward, basically first time taking care of a baby experiences.

The First Diaper

I’m sure Claire will roll her eyes at me someday as I tell her, or other people in front of her, for the 100th time, how her dad taught me how to change a diaper for the first time when she was a fresh baby in the hospital.

It’s true. I NEVER changed a diaper in my entire life before Claire. At least that I am aware of. My mom asked me while I was pregnant how I got this far in life without ever changing a diaper when I confessed this fact to her. I reflected on the question and thought the same thing: How did I manage to get out of changing diapers for the past 35 years? Am I the first 35 year old first time mom who never changed a diaper before? Don’t answer that.

I think I got away with not changing a diaper for the first few hours as my epidural wore off and I was still the pitiful patient who could barely walk herself to the bathroom. But as the sleepless hours wore on, my sweet husband eventually took it upon himself to coach me how to properly care for our child’s basic need of having a fresh diaper. And now I’m a pro!

When Claire Could Hold Her Head Up

As a teeny tiny baby (and I am sure many first timers will agree with me on this one), Claire’s head seemed like it wasn’t quite going to stay on all the way without a firm, supportive hand holding it up. It is only recently, at about 4 months, that I have started to hold her in the ways that I have traditionally thought of other people (who have actually held a baby with confidence before) holding babies. Like, I pick her up by her armpits and her head doesn’t flop backwards.

I remember my brother telling me in the very, very early days about “mother’s thumb”. Apparently this is a syndrome that plagues new mothers, in which their thumbs might become overly strained from picking up their babies by the armpits, putting too much pressure on the thumb. I assured Joey that we were WAY too little for that problem.

I could not fathom a time when Claire could actually hold her head up on her own. It seemed like such a far distant in the future problem he was presenting that I would never encounter. Like when you are a freshman in high school and are absolutely certain that you will never be a senior, because it is just too far into the distant future.

So now here we are: I am picking up Claire by her armpits. No sign of mother’s thumb yet, but we are monitoring closely.

A funny moment for me was when I realized (or more accurately, was told) that I was unnecessarily supporting Claire’s head. She was sitting up in my lap, face out, and I was holding her little body with one arm and pushing her head back with my other palm on her forehead. The impersonation of Claire’s face I got was priceless and made me laugh. And from that moment on I knew that she no longer required me for head support.

Our Big Baby

Did I mention how huge the babies at the pediatrician’s office looked to me on our first few visits? I remember seeing this little boy who might as well have been a man staring at me from his car seat. And there I was with my teeny tiny little bundle of about seven pounds. Another giant baby stared at me while she held her giant Big Baby bottle all by herself, her mom sitting next to her doing her own thing. And again, there I was, teeny tiny baby fastened in car seat in tow, feeling as if she could never be so big.

The other night I had a brief dream that she was a Big Girl, like six or seven, walking up to me in the kitchen. And I thought to myself in the dream how she used to be such a little baby. Then, just last night, I had a brief dream of her pushing her whole little body up and sitting up by herself in her bassinet, and I imagined the bassinet days coming to an abrupt end.

There is no doubt that Claire is a Big Baby now, going on Big Girl. I am not going to know what to do with myself when she sprouts her first tooth or says her first word. I think the first word is going to be the craziest experience ever – like our first baby, Shenanigans, talking. That kind of crazy. She is on the brink of crawling and that will definitely be a whole new world for all of us too.

Maybe all moms feel this way: there is a part of me that wants her to stay in the current stage, but then a part of me that is excited for her to move on. And a whole other part that worries I am not doing everything I could be. So now I am a mom, and living proof that no experience is necessary.