Mark, 8 Weeks and One Day

Baby Mark, aka Baby Dragon, is two months old. “Already?” you may think, “Time goes by fast!”—yeah, well trust me some days feel like they never end at home!

Let’s state the obvi­ous: tak­ing care of a new­born is pretty intense. And it’s just the two of us, Feng and I. We don’t get a break; we don’t get a day off—we are rely­ing on each other. We are tak­ing care of Mark round-the-clock, run­ning the house and we are both work­ing (although I don’t take as much work as I did before… but as a free­lancer I don’t have mater­nity leave).

When­ever I feel over­whelmed I think of par­ents of quin­tu­plets or sex­tu­plets, or sin­gle mothers—it usu­ally makes me feel like I have it easy, at least for a minute or two. How do they do it?! Because right now, I can’t even think of hav­ing two baby drag­ons to take care of, or doing that all by myself.

Yet, this is a reward­ing adventure.

Mark changed a lot since last month. Although peo­ple still mar­vel at small he looks when he is bun­dled up in the sling, he grew a lot. That or the clothes shrunk mys­te­ri­ously. He also has more strength and he can hold his head bet­ter. He likes to try new posi­tions with my sup­port, such as sit­ting, stand­ing or lay­ing on his stomach.

Baby dragon no longer looks like a lit­tle wild ani­mal lost on a for­eign planet. He bonds with us, observes the world around him, reacts to sounds, looks amused, bored, angry, hun­gry, sleepy… yep, he is one of us after all!

Mark’s smile is beau­ti­ful. He started smil­ing when he was five weeks old but at first they were furtive smiles, as if he was exper­i­ment­ing. Lit­tle by lit­tle, he started smil­ing more and more and in a mean­ing­ful way, such as when play­ing or when look­ing at me. It feels good see­ing him happy. Being a par­ent is tough, you never know whether you are doing it right—Mark’s huge grins are the best seal of approval we can get.

So here the month… in numbers!

White hair I got: One. So far. I’m pretty sure I have more but 1) I don’t have the time to check prop­erly in the mir­ror 2) I still claim it’s not white but “just lighter because of the sun” (“what sun?!”).

Times Mark clung to my hair: Every time we bath him in the sink, every other day or so. He grabs a strand of hair as I carry him naked from the bed­room to the bath­room, and only let go when he is in the water.

Pic­tures taken: About 500. I’m get­ting bet­ter at tak­ing baby pic­tures and I really enjoy doc­u­ment­ing his mile­stones. But I do not spam peo­ple with the shots, I just upload them to a Flickr set so that those inter­ested can see them. Gee. I’m not one of these crazy moth­ers obsessed with their kid… am I?

Let­ters Mark received under his name: One. I had his birth reg­is­tered with the French civil reg­is­ter in Toronto, and he was added to our Livret de famille. I’m now offi­cially a wife and mother to the eyes of the French gov­ern­ment. Scary, I know.

Num­bers of lies I told Mark: One. One tiny white lie. See, when I change his dia­per, I put a “singing mon­key” (i.e. a fluffy toy that plays an annoy­ing “ele­va­tor song”, sup­posed to sooth babies) besides him to keep him busy. Well, one day last week, the mon­key remained stub­bornly silent: the bat­ter­ies were dead. So I explained Mark the mon­key had gone on strike because of “shitty” work con­di­tions (ah ah, pun intended!). What? It’s never too early to fos­ter social consciousness.

Num­ber of times we went out to eat with Mark: Twice. Not bad, actu­ally, and he was very quiet while we were hav­ing dinner.

Num­ber of paci­fiers we lose on a daily basis: All three of them. At the begin­ning of the day, they are on the bed­side table on a tis­sue. At the end of the day, there is usu­ally one in my bag or in my pocket, one on the floor wher­ever Mark was and one gone MIA.

Num­ber of times peo­ple said “God bless that lit­tle angel!” when see­ing Mark in the sling: Eight times. And yes, this was on eight dif­fer­ent instances. I’m never sure what to say when peo­ple “bless” him or me. “Thank you”? “The power of Christ com­pels you”?

Num­ber of times Mark passes out in the sling, hands rest­ing on my breasts: At least twice a day. Of course, no mat­ter how deeply he seems to sleep, he will invari­ably wake him the sec­ond I put him down in bed.

Num­ber of times Mark pees on me: At least once a day when I change him. That’s it, next time I want a baby girl. More evolved and proper pee-wise.

Num­ber of smiles: At least one a day. And that makes it worthwhile.

Related arti­cles:

1. Three Months… in Numbers!
2. March & Five Months… In Numbers!
3. A Pinch of Chi­nese, a Pinch of French—Our Bira­cial Baby
4. Feb­ru­ary & Four Months… In Numbers!
5. April & Six Months… in Numbers!
6. May & Seven Months… in Numbers!