The First Shower

So far, I've done everything I need to do for Joey as a mother - feed her, change her diapers, change her clothes, burp her after feeding, play with her, carry her, coax her to sleep, calm her cries, etc etc. But one thing I've not done so far is to bathe her. Hey, please don't think this is easy feat. Especially for a woman who has gone through C-section, bending down is a very difficult thing to do during the healing process. And a fidgeting baby and wet hands make it worse.

But today I decided to take a step of faith to bathe her! Oh man, it was quite an adventure. (but of course, don't expect any photos here, because firstly I AM the one bathing the baby, where got time to take photos of myself?? And fat hope I'm going to keep indiscriminating evidences of a frantic and almost-went-mad mother trying to bathe her daughter for the first time.)

It started off pretty well, I must say. I did all the correct preparation. Closed the windows, off the fan, on the heater water in the bath tub, standby towels and change of clothes, put some shampoo on the side of the tub. Then I brought Joey into the bathroom and happily wet her hair with the small towel soaked in the warm and nice water, like how I always see my mother in law do. So far so good. In came the shampoo on her hair and then washed off. Joey was even smiling. He he.. Chey! Who needs to learn how to bathe a baby??!

Then my mother in law came into the bathroom, and she was happy to see that I am bathing Joey myself.

"So have you wiped her face yet?" she asked casually.
"Opps... I totally forgot!"

Aiyah, the first thing to do is to wipe her face cos once I use the towel to wash her hair, it'll become oily, and it's not good to wipe her face using that. And I forgot & just went ahead to wash her hair. Sigh.. so got to go take another towel to wipe her face.

Then came the most challenging part - to sit her in the bath tub. There is a special way to hold her when she sits in the bath tub so that she doesn't slip down. It'd be disastrous if she really slips into the water. Not only will she wail till the roof comes down, she might not want to bathe anymore in future. Here's when I got frantic. How to hold her?? Even though I observed many times already, I still didn't know how to hold her properly and she seemed uncomfortable and fidgety. So, finally I gave up and my mother in law took over, and I observed with all my might once again.

Well, I will try again tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better. : )