Mom's first baby-free afternoon

After an awesome breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon on Saturday, Mom broke the news to Dad and Olivia. Mommy needs to go run a few errands... on her own if that's ok. (Note to reader: Mom hasn't spent any time away from Olivia since she was born - 5 weeks).

I knew this day would come, as I sighed and let out the reassuring "No worries, go for it." I think that shocked Michelle at first.

So after one false start (aka thinking she was about to leave, but then stopping to feed a hungry Olivia), Michelle was on her way. With a few priceless ounces of Mom's milk in the fridge, it was just me and Olivia. What should we do?

Get out of the house, what else?! But first we had to take her afternoon nap with Dad while watching Sportscenter (Olivia's nap, not mine). After she woke up, I changed her and thought I had her ready for a walk in the stroller.

Enter eureka moment #5 (for Benny). There is a lot of planning that goes into taking a baby anywhere besides ensuring you have the baby, car seat, stroller, and diaper bag. I changed Olivia, picked up Olivia and was ready to head out the door, then put her back down in order to put on my shoes. Here comes the eureka moment: there has never been anything in between me and putting on my shoes and walking out the door. Lesson learned, time to go.

I unloaded the stroller from the car with one hand, set it up one-handed, and set her in it. (Alright I got it, moms are used to doing everything one-handed). Baby, check. Diaper bag, check. Bottle, check. Funky noise, I didn't plan for that. Yup, dirty diaper. Unstrap Olivia, haul her back upstairs, change her, bring her back down and we are ready to go.

Fifty yards down the street, Olivia starts crying. Try weaving the stroller, no luck. Rocking the stroller, no luck. Wait a second, it's been 2 hours since her last feeding... she's probably hungry. We stopped under the little pavillian and Olivia had her afternoon snack. After burping we were back on track to go for our walk.

We walked for about an hour, got back home, but no Mom yet. Olivia's not crying, let's keep walking. So we walked for another 15 minutes before coming home to fix some more funky sounds.

We made it home safe and sound and waited for Mom's return. When Mom returned, she asked how it went with Olivia. I responded "who?" Just kidding, everything went fine (and I'd probably tell her everything went fine anyways even if I didn't have as much fun as Olivia). Mom said she worried about us the whole time, like we thought she whould. But now she knows she has nothing to worry about.