The 5 Senses: Parenthood Edition

Becoming parents has changed quite a bit for us.  Our social lives and sleeping habits have taken a turn for the almost non-existent and our eating habits have taken a turn for massive cereal consumption...but that's neither here nor there.  What has been hilarious to note is the change in the way we use our five senses now that we have a little person in our house.  For the most part, we used to use our five senses for pleasurable reason; listening to music; watching reality tv, eating steak and tiramisu...and now with the addition of our little babe, the five senses have become more of survival tools than anything else.  See below for elaboration...

Sight is our best defense in protecting Greyson from any harm; real or made up.  From examining the length of his fingernails to the color of his poo; it is all about observation.  The sight of his little grin is what gets us through the sleepless nights.  As if our own view of his every move isn't enough; we've backed all these visual memories up with photos.  There's a whole lot of staring, gawking, and creepily peeking over the crib railing going on over here.

Our hearing has gotten better since the addition to our family.  Before Greyson, I couldn't have the tv turned up loud enough and now I can hear it at volume 4 while Grey is napping.  We can both hear the difference between a cry from hunger and a cry for cuddling.  We listen for music that has new sounds to introduce to Grey; we've recently discovered he likes the sound of horns in music (like in Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash).

Taste has become a delicacy in our lives now.  With all the pb&j and cereal we've been eating- getting a taste of "real food" is like a little gift.  Chicken and rice never tasted so good.  We talk about the things we don't like to eat (Brandon - tomatoes, me- ribs) and try to guess if Grey will take after one of us.  We'd like for him to be more than just a "chicken nuggets and buttered noodles" kid at restaurants.  We can hardly wait for him to know what anything besides bmilk tastes like.  How exciting life will be then!

The way things feel has become an obsession around here.   "The baby's skin is so soft," "That carpet is too scratchy," "Pet Bullet, he's nice," "I think that tag is itching him," "Oooh, that blankie is soft."  Yes...that is how we talk now.  Since he's still so teeny, touching things is about the only playing we can do so far since he can't hold his head up yet.  Its funny to think how much we take touching for granted; not since I was a teenager holding Brandon's hand for the first time have I made such a big deal over the sense of touch. 

Smell is the big one...actually, I think smell is always the big one.  It never gets old.  The sense of smell is the one that holds the most memories (I think I heard that somewhere).  On the survival side of it, we lift the baby up to smell if he needs diaper change and to be honest I don't know how many shirts I've smelled in the past few weeks to decide whether or not they have 'too much spit up on it' to change.  But we've also come to appreciate smells too- we've started announcing to Greyson when a new smell comes along to him for the first time...like the other day on the drive to Johnstown with the windows down, "Greyson, that's what cow poop smells like."

If nothing else, our little Greybaby has blown fresh air into our awareness of the five senses.  Now every sound, smell, sight, taste, and touch are rediscovered because it is the first time for our little guy, so its kind of new again to us too.  Suddenly, the smell of a skunk outside is more to our family than just gross...its actually pretty exciting:)