Scheduling at its Finest

Today begins my first attempt at creating a schedule for my new life. Obviously it will expand and evolve as JD get older but for now I'm keeping it simple. Last week was a flurry of visitors and hanging out with J's folks who, by the way, are freaking amazing. The anxiety I had of what it would be like trying to breast feed and whatnot was completely unnecessary. They made the transition from hospital to home so easy and did everything they could to make me and JD more comfortable. I miss them very much.

Now I'm sitting on the couch with my 1 week old baby boy laying next to me, watching him sleep, while thinking about the kind of life I want to create for him. It needs to be structured but not too structured. It needs to allow for play time as well as for chores to get done. As tempting as it is to do nothing except watch him sleep I know that I'll ultimately pay for it if I allow myself to slip into the habit. Here's what I am aiming for tomorrow:

Wake up whenever JD gets up
Feed him and let him slip back into his deep comma like sleep
Take JD for a walk that will later transition into a run
Do my 20 minutes of household chores
Do a load of laundry
Shower
Get dressed including doing my hair and makeup
Eat and make J eat
Spend the rest of the day until 4ish staring at my JD, feeding him, taking naps with him and eating lunch at some point
Make dinner
Eat dinner
Clean up dinner
Go on a walk with my SIL and JD
Shower
Spend the rest of the night hanging out with J and JD being an awesome family

That looks pretty doable for a first routine, right? I don't want to overdo it to the point of failure and the reality is I need sleep. This kiddo takes a lot out of me, not that I'm complaining, and I want to make sure that I am still taking care of myself. Plus I could watch him sleep like it's my full time job. He is so beautiful...so perfect...so absolutely delightful in every way that I just can't help myself...I love watching him be...well...himself.

I also need this routine to help structure myself. This baby blues thing is no joke. Last Friday I sank to a really really dark place that manifested itself with LOTS of crying for absolutely no reason. Poor J didn't know what to do with himself. He kept asking me if I was okay which I, obviously, was not but he would get stumped when he would ask me if I was sad which I am absolutely not. I just needed to cry a deep heart wrenching cry. It was compacted by the fact that I had for some reason agreed to work a party that night and forgotten about it so I didn't have time to get it covered. It turned out really well though. It got me out of the house and focusing on something else for a few minutes. When I came home I was back to myself. Saturday I had a similar episode, though not as severe, and J did a much better job helping me through it. He had me sit on his lap and he cradled me like a little baby all while cooing in my ear things like, "It's okay lil' girl. Everything is gonna be okay." It's hard to cry when you are laughing. That night we ended up going to my younger brother's house as well. I needed some time away from our house and it was the perfect distraction. I'm super terrified of sinking into Post Partum Depression so I'm going to do everything in my power to keep the baby blues just the baby blues and not the gateway to a deeper issue. I'm also joining a support group at the hospital to keep me getting out and about and will hopefully give me even more tools to combat Post Partum. I better get some shut eye while I still can. Toodles!