twinkletoes

week deux

I think I know why newborns have a fairly limited repertoire - it's to give new parents a chance to get the hang of things more easily. Our days tend to be as follows: give Jack an early morning feed, burp him, let him sleep, change/"top and tail" him, feed again approximately 3-4 hours later, burp him, let him sleep, change him, feed 3-4 hours later, and repeat until the following morning. Of course there is also lots of cuddling, singing, talking, playing in his new bouncy chair, and other stuff in between, but mostly it's about the feeding, burping, sleeping, and changing. Once you have these skills down pat, your confidence grows and you feel like you can handle this whole baby thing like a pro. We are becoming skilled at avoiding pee spraying during nappy changes and baths, we know which cry means "Feed me!" or "I'm bored, entertain me!" or "Get me out of this dirty nappy!", we have identified facial expressions that indicate the filling of nappies, and we have discovered that Jack enjoys being marched around the house while his Daddy hums various tunes. We have now fallen into a routine. Most couples dread the "r" word in other circumstances, but when it comes to babies, it's a welcome development. Until your baby learns a new skill or decides to create an entirely different eating and sleeping pattern, that is.

I'm still not feeling wonderful, thanks to a scar that isn't healing well. I'm on antibiotics, so hopefully things will improve. I suppose I lucked out in that I never did get any stretchmarks and avoided an episiotomy, but whoever thought that a c-section is somehow the "easy way out" when it comes to giving birth was hugely mistaken. Perhaps if we had staff to do everything for us I would agree with this, but speaking for myself, there is nothing glamorous about being unable to make myself a cup of tea or lift my son out of his moses basket. On a lighter note, Paul has been making Harry Potter jokes when I mention that my scar hurts ("Voldemort must be close by!"), which has been good for a giggle.

I am still amazed that Jack is ours. Making the connection between my bump and Jack is rather surreal, and I sometimes have difficulty believing that this gorgeous little boy came out of me. On the other hand, having him at home is completely natural. It's like he's always been here and my life as a pregnant lady feels like a million years ago. Now if only everything would stop hurting from between my neck and legs, life would be grand.

picture perfect

Strongman Jack flexes his biceps for the crowds:



He does have hands; his outfit has built in anti-scratch mitties. The blue thing with dogs on it is a Grobag, which is like a little sleeping bag. They are fabulous and he can't slip under it like a blanket or sheets. The only downside is that they are a bit bulky and I have to remove it before a feed, or else Jack ends up trying to suck on the Grobag instead.

Speaking of feeding, I think the wahwahwahwahwahwahwahwah noise I'm hearing means it's mealtime again. With our genes, we were guaranteed to have a kid with a healthy appetite - but can I keep up with the demand?

blog from a mutha

I'm pleased as punch to be celebrating my first Mother's Day (don't ask me why it's in March in the UK; I just live here), and so far, I have been spoiled rotten. First, I got two cards this morning. Then, breakfast arrived:



A bit later, these were delivered to our house:



Right now, I've got a sleeping 12 day old little boy in my arms. He isn't showing much interest in my computer at the moment, but I'm sure he'll soon figure out that Daddy's credit card + Internet access = heaps of fun. It's only 11am, and it's already been a beautiful day. Now to convince Paul to do this all over again in May when it's Mother's Day in North America. We must teach our son about his cultural heritage, surely.

To all you muthas out there, have a fabulous day. If someone isn't spoiling you, feel free to come over here and I'm sure Paul will cook you a MacDurbs eggy bagel.

the scales never seem to work in my favour

So the midwife came to visit today and she brought her scale. She wasn't convinced that Jack weighed 10 lbs. at birth (in fact, every midwife who's seen him said the same thing, but thought he did look long) and decided to put him on the scales today. You can imagine our shock when he turned out to be 7 lbs. 14 ounces - hardly the hefty bairn he was supposed to be at birth. She said that at around 2 weeks babies return to their birth weight (they lose a bit during week one, then put it back on again), so she thinks this is his birth weight.

Well peachy, now what the hell do we put on the birth announcement? I am opting to leave his weight off the announcement, but it's still a bit annoying. One of the doctors questioned the scale when Jack was born (she was also convinced he wasn't 10 lbs.), but they didn't double check him on another one. So, this means there are probably a lot of babies in this region with incorrect birth weights if they were delivered by c-section. The scale in the operating theatre seems to have been a bit wonky, so now we don't really know Jack's birth weight. Good thing the midwife was canny enough to weigh him today or else the health visitor on Monday probably would have thought I was starving the poor boy.

Hmph, he certainly felt like a ten pounder in the last couple of weeks of pregnancy, believe me. Then again, I'm relieved because apparently baby #2 tends to be heavier than the first. I had visions of being bedridden for the last two months of pregnancy the next time round.

dummies for babies

After another sleepless night filled with inconsolable shrieking (on all of our parts), we decided to haul out the big guns and used a dummy (pacifier) last night. Whenever Jack went into "I'm going to scream my lungs out and I have no idea why, but I can keep it up for at least three hours - go ahead and try to stop me" mode, we placed the dummy in his mouth. Instantly, the crying stopped and our son turned into the male version of Maggie Simpson until he happily fell back asleep and let the dummy fall out of his mouth. He woke up at midnight, 4am, and 8am with his tiny little crying voice and promptly fell back asleep again after a feed and/or nappy change. That's right, we had four hours of continuous sleep throughout the night. Oh yes.

Another great discovery yesterday was my breast pump. After a week and a half of feeding the Milk Monster, let's just say that mealtimes were becoming rather painful and tense. I got the bright idea to give myself a rest and express some milk for every other feed until my wounds healed. After fumbling around with various fiddly bits (assembling a breast pump is worse than putting together Ikea furniture, and the instructions are just as useless), I read through the instructions carefully. They stated that it could take several attempts for the milk to begin flowing, and not to worry because most women find that they need quite a few tries before it works. After a few squeezes, streams of milk came shooting out, which was both interesting and slightly alarming at the same time. I had no idea it came out like that; I imagined a slow dribble like tapping sap from a maple tree. Equally interesting/scary was the fact that my milk looks just like cow's milk, which led Paul to start calling me "Ermintrude". I did Jack's next feed au naturel, but the following one was given to him by his daddy using a bottle of my expressed milk. We both thought it was very cool that Paul could now share in this ritual, and I am very pleased to have a bit of a break to heal.

We woke up feeling drugged and a bit hungover after finally getting a decent night's sleep. A couple of hours later and I feel like a million bucks. How lovely to wake up a few times in the night without the frustration and stress - it's heartbreaking when your child is crying uncontrollably and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. It gives us the chance to simply enjoy being with Jack without the chaos of trying to comfort his frantic sobbing. Here's hoping we have another night like last night.

a week in review

I'm a little less shellshocked now and flashbacks to horrible hospital moments are fading fast. Although I'm still fairly useless (unless you need milk, then I'm your woman), I am starting to feel more human and I can move around a bit more each day. Jack and I have got this breastfeeding thing down pat now, but unfortunately having a 10 lb. baby means he's got quite the appetite. He's now been dubbed the "Hungry Hungry Hippo" and the "Milk Monster".

We are well and truly sleep deprived, with last night being the worst so far. Jack would cry, feed, fall asleep in my arms, and then start crying his tiny little lungs out as soon as we'd put him back in his moses basket. He continued to shriek despite Paul's countless attempts to figure out if it was gas, a dirty nappy, boredom, loneliness, or illness. Jack had very short pauses in his crying marathon (not enough so that we could actually sleep), and with each subsequent feed every couple of hours, we prayed that this time he'd conk out for at least an hour or more. He finally fell asleep at 4am and didn't stir until around 10. He woke up for a feed and has been asleep ever since - it's now 3pm. Phew. I am wondering if he's having some problems digesting because my milk came in recently. He's been filling nappies like a trooper and farting for England and Canada (seriously, I thought it was Paul trying to put blame on the baby), so maybe it was a bad night due to prevailing winds.

Despite the lack of sleep and constant parade of poopy nappies, we can't help but simply gaze at him and wonder how we managed to produce such a beautiful little person. I find myself teary-eyed, gently stroking his incredibly soft skin and telling him how much I love him. Even when he's screaming in my ear, I press his head up against my chest and cradle him, somehow still managing to feel overjoyed that this little creature is mine. His coos, chirps, gurgles, and squeaks make us smile and we call him a Gremlin. Jasper has taken to the new hairless pink puppy, and pokes his head over the side of the moses basket whenever Jack makes a sound. He stood against the side of the basket when the midwife came to visit yesterday, making a protective canine barrier between Jack and the strange lady in our house.

I feel very jet lagged; I'm never sure what time or day it is. But what a wonderful trip this has been.