Relaxed Parents

Well, there’s now four of us living here and we’re starting to adjust.  I’m sleeping in the lounge whilst supermum and baby settle in.  I’ll do a change or two during the night but a) there really isn’t a whole lot of room in even our rather large bed for three of us (once you take into account the pillow architecture required for breastfeeding and b) I’m doing a fair bit of running around during the day and I need some sleep.  It’s a division of labour:  supermum is busy recovering from a c-section and breastfeeding – an occupation that refuses to recognise trivial boundaries such as night and day – so I deal with cooking, shopping, the bulk of nappy changes and so on.  It’s working for us so far whilst we sort ourselves out and establish new routines.  Baby is sleeping in a Moses basket (lovely name) by the side of the bed, incidentally.
Speaking of sleep, it so far seems to be baby’s favourite occupation which is about as far from our experience with dudelet at this age as it is possible to get.  It won’t last – we’re managing our expectations – but she’s already sleeping two and a half hours at a stretch.

What else?  She’s utterly beautiful – I hadn’t expected to be this smitten this quickly.  She likes looking at things.  She also attempts to treat anything – arms, jumpers, the male chest – as a potential breast.  Feeding is going very well, in other words.

Dudelet is also coping well.  Bedtimes are a little difficult but he’s very proud of his little sister.  We’ve finally settled on a name which he’s grudgingly acceded to, provided, when he’s eight, we get to switch to his original choice.  Hopefully by then, she’ll be old enough to refuse to play ball. Or maybe they’ll gang up on us.

I took him to see a Santa at a school fair today.  He queued patiently and marched in beaming all over his face.  He refused to say a word to the slightly plummy-voiced Father Christmas in the grotto (a school library covered in a warehouse-load of tinsel) but on being asked what he wanted for Christmas finally whispered in my ear

“A popcorn maker!”

Thank you for all the messages of goodwill and congratulations – normal reading/ranting will resume in due course!  Love to you all…