I cannot believe that Emerson was born four weeks ago--and that my last "real" update was longer ago than that. No one bothers to tell you that the work required for two kids is not just twice as much but exponentially more. How anyone outnumbered by their kids manages to survive is beyond me.
That said, we do seem to have a sweet-natured baby in Emerson. She's so relaxed that when we took her swimming last week she fell asleep in the pool. That's pretty damn relaxed. Of course we have the standard newborn stuff--nursing every two to three hours, diaper changes that double as personal attempts for the poo-distance record in Guiness, baby acne--but we really can't complain. In fact, I think that's why it's taken me so long to blog about the whole thing--I have this feeling that if I commit in print to what a great baby she is that I will be tempting the fates. Superstitious? Me? Why do you ask?
She's been unreasonably good all along. I went into labor on the Saturday morning of a holiday weekend, was checked in by 11 a.m., and had her at 5:33 in the evening. It wasn't even a full day's work, really. The whole birth was trauma-free enough that I was able to sit on the ground outdoors only five days after she was born. I could barely sit on a comfy chair for weeks after Connery was born. If someone had asked me then to sit on the ground, I would have just laughed at them. On second thought, given my state of mind post-Connery's birth, I probably would have cried and snotted on them.
The first week after Emerson's birth, we had the able help of my mom and dad. They left just in time for the beginning of Chip's two-week vacation/paternity leave (of which more later) and then we all went to Great Falls on the last Friday of his leave. Connery, Emerson, and I stayed with my parents until just yesterday, while Chip had to go back to work on Monday (not before having to switch cars with my parents after our van refused to start in the parking lot of Chili's). My parents brought the three of us home yesterday afternoon--a four-hour journey that Emerson slept through entirely.
Many of you have asked how Connery is adapting to having to share the spotlight. Overall, I think he's coping as well as could be expected. He is very gentle and loving with Emerson--sometimes perhaps too affectionate, as he would like to hug and kiss her pretty much 18 hours a day, including when she's sleeping, nursing, and having her diaper changed--and seems genuinely interested in her. On the other hand, he's cottoned on to the notion that negative attention is still attention and has done his level best to attract whatever he can. I think he's decided that parental attention is much like publicity--there's no such thing as bad. I think it's a very good thing that we signed him up for Montessori camp most of the summer.
I am going to try to catch up on some of the things I've missed blogging about during this blurry four weeks. In the meantime, I thank all four of you remaining readers for your patience and hope that you'll forgive my protracted absence.