A Haiku for Lou

my very first pet

orange, mellow, handsome cat;

I’ll miss you so much

The Babymoon is Over

I’m going back to work (student teaching) tomorrow - I can’t believe it. It’s been so great to be at home with E. and Mr. E. - spending so much uninterrupted time together getting to know him, giving him baths, and taking copious amounts of pictures of him, of course. It’s also been good that we’ve taken him out of the house together - to get the routine down enough so that we can manage it on our own in the future when we need to. I am excited to get back to the students, but I know it will be hard to leave my little guy.

E. asked me the other night if I was going to post about the birth from my point of view. I said I didn’t think I would. I feel like E. gave a very thorough account of what happened, and I was right there with her through every bit of it. The hardest part of it all was watching her in so much pain for so long, and that coupled with no sleep left my nerves shot by the early morning on the day he was born. But I learned, as these kind of experiences often teach us, how amazingly equipped our bodies, minds and spirits are to take on such extreme circumstances, and when my perfect boy was born I forgot about all of it. The other hard part was sleeping in a hospital for 3 nights, and I thought I might just lose it when they started threatening a 4th because of his jaundice. Thank goodness we broke out of there!

The best part was the experience of his birth, seeing him come into this world and then being the one to look at him and pronounce “it’s a boy!” Perhaps the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced.

Almost 2 weeks later, and Mr. E. has seemed to fit seamlessly into our lives. Sometimes he takes up a lot of energy - like when it takes us hours to get out of the house, but sometimes he is just the cartoon baby, plopped right down in front of us, silently sleeping while we carry on with our lives. This is going to be such an interesting journey…

In Awe

It’s hard to describe how it feels the first week you have a new baby - the first week you become a mom. Things so far have been both wonderfully amazing and wonderfully hard. Things that are amazing: his sounds, his eyes, his involuntary half-smiles, times when I catch his eyes and he looks at me for a few seconds like he recognizes me. Things that are hard: dealing with his Jaundice - taking him for bloodwork every morning, becoming swiftly schooled on the difficulties of making medical decisions as a parent, the general worry of parenting a newborn.

I can’t believe he’s been with us a week already. I really don’t know where the time went - first our 3 grueling nights in the hospital, one without him, two with - and then the worry and stress of whether or not we’d be let home because of his Jaundice - it was the best news ever when they said we could go, and we avoided having to put him in the “light box” for who knows how long - and instead they sent us home with a contraption that wraps around his body and has him tethered to the box by a 4-foot hose. It has been hard for us both to see our perfect, sweet boy tied to this machine, and even harder to get the news each day that his count went up, and we can’t take him off yet. A first of many challenges as a parent, I’m sure - but I wasn’t expected it so soon.

ETA: Please, no advice about Jaundice - I’ve talked and read it to death, and at this point just want to focus on talking with our pediatrician on what we need to do. Thanks.

Hello World!

Our little guy.
So amazing.
More words when I can form them into coherent sentences.

So. in. love.

The intracacies of my cat’s mind…

 

…are unexplainable at best.

Innovation

I picked up our first farm share today - and was SO EXCITED to get so many yummy veggies.  Tonight I was inspired to create something completely new: chicken baked in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, shredded carrots and beats, with a side of sauteed swiss chard, onion, garlic, bell pepper and black beans.  YUM.

Farm shares are one thing I’m REALLY going to miss about this area.

Local Bike Ride

It was such a gorgeous day out today, so I decided to take a bike ride and bring along my camera.  I took some pics along the way - view flickr for the rest.

Happy Pride!

Although most of the country celebrates Pride in June, we live in the lovely 5-college area, thus ours is in early May. Mr. Lou thought he’d get his pride on and start celebrating.

Happy Pride.

Birthday Sock Creature

I got my birthday wish.

A sock creature from H.

I’m taking name suggestions. Though I’m leaning toward one that will do this flaming gay sock creature justice.

P.S. Check out our new joint blog about travel and all-things relaxation.

Pitty Party: Part 2

So, I woke up this morning to this fantabulous scene. (old pic - E has the camera, but it looks basically the same)

I’m convinced it’s all a big joke on moi because I was just thinking yesterday, “I wonder if we are done getting snow for the season?”