The Five Month Old Baby Workout

I called my brother this past week for a specific reason.
Then, I texted my Sister-in-law.

You see, they have two young children who just turned three and five, both boys.
The past couple of years, I've been slightly ass-holeish as I peer back into the past through my rose-colored glasses.

"Oh, enjoy those baby years!" I'd say. "I used to worry about all kinds of stuff that I now realize isn't important. The teen years, man, those are HARD. The hours are long, the potential for lasting trouble greater, the emotional demands and patience needed high. Babies are easy- feed them, change them, give them naps and they're happy."

Yeah.

I called them to apologize.

As I have been wont to do from time to time, I'm keeping a friend's baby.
I started last week and I'll have him until the end of the school year, in mid-June.
His Mom is a teacher and that allows me to have the break times to spend with my own kids
and time to get my baby fix.

But let me tell you, this time I can really feel a difference.

It's not the baby. He is all kinds of wonderful.
He is a happy, smiley little fellow.
But OMG, the physicality of it is something I've forgotten.
The amount of time it takes to feed him, the burping, the spitting up,the changing, the carrying- this I had forgotten.

The car seat with the baby in it must weigh about a million pounds--
I stagger through the door in the morning with the baby in the car seat and it feels like a workout.
Carrying him around reverberates in my back and in my wrists.

No doubt I have to work my way up to it..
I pretty much went from nothing to hefting 18 pounds many times a day.

Besides picking my sons up from school, I've managed to leave the house ONCE with this baby in a week and a half.
My accomplishment of the day is a shower, a load of laundry and getting dinner started.

I can say with near certainty that this will be the last baby I keep.. good thing he is as wonderful as he is!

And Richard and Michelle, I'll say it again- I'm sorry! Babies are hard work indeed!