Afternoon coffee

Last time, you joined me for morning tea.  Now I'm no longer pregnant and have a newborn who has her days and nights mixed.  So now it's morning coffee, mid-morning coffee, occasionally afternoon coffee... you get the picture.

If you were here having a cup of coffee with me, you would be surrounded by a bustle of activity (once again, very different from last time).  My firstborn is the primary cause of that.  Right now, she's stomping around the house in her Diego light-up snow boots, watching Kai-Lan (basically the Chinese version of Dora the Explorer).  She makes quite the picture.  I'll be sure to get out my camera to capture it for potential future embarrassment (why do parents do that, anyway?).

My husband just got back from taking our newborn to the doctor for a check-up.  She gained half a pound last week!  So she's finally back up to her birth weight and doesn't have to go back for another check-up until she's two months old.  Hooray for normalcy!

If you were here having a cup of coffee with me, you would notice that I'm still in my pajamas.  I'm in my pajamas most of the day everyday, which is most likely the cause of my current cooped-up feeling.  I should probably try to get into a routine of my own (outside of the kids' feeding and sleeping routines) to start feeling a little more normal myself.  But knowing and doing are two completely different things, and when one is tired, changing out of pajamas just doesn't sound enticing at all.

If you were here, I would hand my newborn to you to see if you could get her to burp.  Because sometimes she's impossible to burp, like right now.  And of course she's sleeping.  Doesn't everyone sleep all day?

Morning tea

It's 6am.  I don't have to be at work for another hour yet, but I've been up since 4am with a runny nose, so I'm taking advantage of the quiet time by enjoying a mug of Earl Grey.  If you were sitting here with me at my kitchen table, I would offer you some and we would wake up together.

If you were joining me for tea, you would probably laugh at my deep, raspy, cold-laden voice.  I sound like I should be hosting a midnight radio show on the light jazz radio station.  How do I know this if I'm sitting by myself?  I tried it out.  Hey, it's 6am and I'm the only person awake in the house.  I'm allowed to try out my jazz voice (quietly, of course).

If you were sitting here with me, drinking tea, you would notice that I'm a new consumer of Splenda and soy milk.  In several ways, it's a reminder for me that all us daughters do become our mothers.  Now I actually understand why my mother bought this crap... I mean, bought these delicious alternatives.  Sugar intolerance sucks, but it's better than diabetes, so I count my blessings.

If you were joining me for tea, we would probably talk about the baby growing inside me, because that topic is sheerly unavoidable.  I would tell you about my scheduled doctor's appointment today, and my accompanying food diary, and how this child is a real mover and shaker.  You would ask me my due date, we would marvel at how close it is, we would wonder aloud how Caroline is going to do with the whole thing, and then we would move on to other topics.

If you were sitting here with me at my kitchen table, I would ask you about your day and your plans.  Large or small, a day's plans are important.  They're going to be what consume you for the next 14 hours, and that's a long time.  So I would ask you about that, and how you feel.

And then we would start our day and go our separate ways.  But it's nice to begin with morning tea.