Goodness

Simon left for work about forty-five minutes ago, and my parents have yet to arrive from their hotel to begin the daily pampering (I'm just a scepter short of royalty around here these days), which means I've just spent my first morning alone with the boy. So far he's slept in bed on my chest, slept in the bouncy seat while I peed and put in my contacts, slept in the bouncy seat while I made and ate breakfast, slept in the bouncy seat while the cats inspected him with trepidation for the thousandth time, and slept in the bouncy seat while I got online to connect with the larger outside world. (I say "larger" outside world because we've already been out and about quite a bit in the smaller outside world since he was born: to the burrito shop, the coffee shop, to REI (on the Saturday before Christmas = not recommended), to the pediatrician (twice!), and to the parking lot of BevMo (we stayed in the car to feed while everyone else went in and stocked up on boozies.)

So, basically, the kid sleeps a lot, which I have to say is pretty freakin' awesome. The doctor actually told us we'd be wise to wake him at night if he sleeps longer than three hours (which he does, all the time, possibly because he knows mama needs her beauty rest) because regular, hearty feedings are the best way to get through the jaundice period that apparently all infants go through to some degree. (He was looking particularly yellow on Day 5, which is why we made the second visit to the pediatrician on Friday. There was a small possibility he might have ABO incompatibility-type jaundice, which Simon and I both panicked about a little mostly because everything has gone so amazingly well up to this point that we're kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop and for havoc and misery to rain down upon us. Considering that untreated jaundice can turn a baby's brain into undifferentiated goo, we were afraid that was our fate.)

But...nothing to worry about as far as the jaundice goes, and everything else about Wombat is absolutely perfect. He feeds like he'd been practicing for months beforehand, and he only seems to squawk when something is actually wrong--none of this "I cry therefore I am" baloney. Part of this cheery disposition might have to do with the small matter that between me, Simon, Grandma, and Grandpa, the kid hardly ever gets put down. There's always someone to rock him or kiss him or stick a pinky (or a boob) in his mouth, and there's usually even a spare person to take his photograph while any of the above are happening. There are already gigs of pictures and video. GIGS. And he's only a week old.

So, on this, the first morning of Week 2, my assessment is this: He's a very good baby, and we're counting our lucky stars for all the sleep we're getting, all the help and good meals we're receiving, and all the joy that has already come into our lives because of this seven-pound nugget. I say he's a "good baby" knowing that there are obviously no "bad" babies (except maybe this one), but I should also clarify for the record that he's the BEST baby, in the world, ever, and I'm saying that because it's true, not just because I'm his mom.

Holy crap, guys. I'm his mom.

And even though that's still a little hard to wrap my brain around sometimes, I think that the Motherhood part of this experience is going well too. Physically, I'm pretty much completely recovered, and my hormones, which stayed in check the entire pregnancy, have yet to go haywire, if you don't count the two or three crying jags that were the result of my worring that I don't have the constitution to handle every day being a milestone. Last night we lit a candle and played our Happy Birthday music box to celebrate Wombat's first week in the world, and I almost put the flame out with my tears. And yesterday morning I read through this book for the first time and cried so hard that when Simon went to open the book a few hours later he found that all the pages were stuck together. When you're a sentimental goon at heart, it's exceptionally hard to keep a dry eye when everything is a first--first car ride, first bath, first pair of socks (the ones we got from Sara and Ron that look like little Converse sneakers)--and it only makes it harder that Simon sings to the baby constantly and it's so sweet and so funny and so him ("Little baby loves his mom / He doesn't cry, he's nice and calm / He doesn't like random access memory but prefers ROM / his favorite brand of contact solution is Bausch and Lomb") that I want to commit all of it to video, in part because I hope to relive the moment later, when my vision isn't obscured by blubbering.

I guess you could say we're adjusting nicely. Before all this I wondered how, if everything was already so good, a complete change could be anything but uncomfortable, if not also mind-bendingly difficult, at least in the short term. Now that we're here and everything is indeed different, I realize how easy it is to redefine The Good Life when it looks like this.

wrote Leah at 6:37 AM | Comments (29)