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One Dragon Baby to Rule Them All – A Month Later, in Numbers

Mark, Day 30

As I am typing this, Mark is exactly four weeks old—but I can’t really tell which day we are or whether it’s night or day because the past few weeks have been a blur. The last thing I remember, I was taking pictures between two contractions in Room 8, at the Civic Hospital, where Mark was going to make an entrance into the world. And here I am, tonight, wearing milk-stained clothes, sipping a Coke Zero and trying to stay awake—and sane.

We are a family. We have a family. It’s the three of us now, a multicultural household in a multicultural country. Writing this makes me smile. I am now a mother, Feng is a father and we have a child. It still feels unreal but yet strangely natural.

Yet we are such an unlikely family. I am French, Feng is Chinese, we met in Beijing, we both ended up with a Canadian citizenship and living in Ottawa, and Mark was “made” in Central America… what were the chances!

So here is our first month as a family… in numbers:

Diapers changed: about a billion (sorry landfill, sorry environment!). Damn you City of Ottawa for switching to bi-weekly garbage pickup just now!

Car trips taken late in the night in a desperate attempt to put Mark to sleep: two. Oh and he did fall asleep in the car seat… but woke up as soon as we stopped in the driveway.

Clothes thrown away: one (cheap) white onesie, following a particularly nasty pooping incident. You don’t want the details, trust me. Side question, who decided that baby clothes should be white? Seriously!

Mail Mark received: many cute cards (thank you all!), his birth certificate, health card and SIN card. Yep, buddy, Big Brother is already watching you!

Pictures taken: about two hundred, including some silly ones I will definitely post on his Facebook wall when he is a teen. Revenge is a dish best served cold, honey.

Number of nipples sucked on a daily basis by a hungry beast: two. And unfortunately, the “hungry beast” is not Feng, nor this is a metaphor for kinky bedroom time.

Number of times Mark ends up sleeping with either of us: about 70% of the time. He uses us as giant pillows and can wake up the second we attempt to leave the bed.

Number of times Mark slept through my in-law’s visits: all of them. Even though everyone was shouting out around him in Mandarin. Go figure.

Number of times I drank my tea cold: 30 times. The last time I drank it hot was at the hospital, shortly after giving birth, when Mark was sleeping… like a baby. Ah ah.

Number of times I say “ah, just let him cry for a minute” and last about thirty second before picking him up: twenty times a day. Do the math.

Number of times I passed out while breastfeeding: at least once. That I rememb—zzzzzzzzzzz…….

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Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

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