These kids, they grow up so fast! Why, it was just seven weeks ago I held a tiny little girl in my arms for the first time, wondering if she could make any sense of the sounds she heard or the occasional image she would let into her eyes. She remained largely silent, save for some crying around feeding time, choosing to spend 20 hours a day sleeping. She weighed less than a bag of groceries and it seemed as if I could curl her up in my arm and hide her entire body.
\nToday, she\u2019s increased her weight by over 50%, stays awake almost all day, smiles and makes the first noises that will one day be laughs, and manages to show bits and pieces of her developing personality. Her cheeks, chin, arms, and legs are getting chubby, and she\u2019s noticeably longer. Most fun is the little moments of interaction, when you know she sees you and is smiling or laughing because she knows that\u2019s one of her parents looking back at her. One of M.\u2019s favorite things is staring at the chandelier in the kitchen. We\u2019ll put her in her bouncy seat, and she just stares at the lights. After a few minutes, she grins, giggles, and looks away. Basically she\u2019s flirting with a Pottery Barn light fixture. Equal parts cute and disturbing.
\nIt\u2019s really quite humbling how quickly every aspect of this little person that now lives with us is developing. I can\u2019t help but notice how much I\u2019ve changed too. I never had that sensation of helplessness you hear from so many first parents. The first day we brought her home I didn\u2019t wonder, \u201cOK, now what do we do?\u201d Of course, that\u2019s only because I\u2019m married to a pediatrician and I\u2019m expecting that she can guide me through every baby-related life change that is in our future. However, when M. was crying at 3:00 AM her first night home, I do know that I wondered if I could really do this for the next X years, depending on how many kids we end up having. Seven weeks later, waking up every three hours is a breeze. (An additional benefit of being unemployed is not having to deal with people in the morning!) I was afraid to change a diaper six weeks ago. I\u2019m not going to say I enjoy it now or anything ridiculous like that, but I can clean our daughter\u2019s booty at record speed. When we first gave M. a bath, I forced S. to do it since between the screaming, the kicking, and the slippery baby, I was convinced I would do something awful. Today, I love giving M. a bath. She gets so happy when I drop her bottom into a tub full of warm water. Her eyes get big, she stares at me with a look of total wonderment, and when I wash her face, she now breaks into a huge grin.
\nIt becomes clich\u00e9, but I must reiterate what an amazing feeling it is to be responsible for another life. I think M. is beginning to understand how amazing it is to have me as a father, too! Oh, speaking of growing up fast, she asked that I pass word along that she\u2019s really looking forward to meeting all the people in Kansas City she\u2019s heard about when we come to visit next week.
\nI do still owe you many, many stories from M.\u2019s birth. I worked for about 10 days on my all-encompassing post covering what happened from the moment S.\u2019s water broke until we came home the next Wednesday. I hit about 8,000 words and still hadn\u2019t reached the point on Sunday when we formally named her and thought better of sharing it. So it becomes my goal to flesh out some of the more important and interesting anecdotes in the larger work and share those over the next few days before we depart for KC. I\u2019ll do my best to keep them under 8,000 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
These kids, they grow up so fast! Why, it was just seven weeks ago I held a tiny little girl in my arms for the first time, wondering if she could make any sense of the sounds she heard or the occasional image she would let into her eyes. She remained largely silent, save for some crying around feeding time, choosing to spend 20 hours a day sleeping. She weighed less than a bag of groceries and it seemed as if I could curl her up in my arm and hide her entire body. Today, she\u2019s increased her weight by over 50%, stays awake almost all day, smiles and makes the first noises that will one day be laughs, and manages to show bits and pieces of her developing personality. Her cheeks, chin, arms, and legs are getting chubby, and she\u2019s noticeably longer. Most fun is the little moments of interaction, when you know she sees you and is smiling or laughing because she knows that\u2019s one of her parents looking back at her. One of M.\u2019s favorite things is staring at the chandelier in the kitchen. We\u2019ll put her in her bouncy seat, and she just stares at the lights. After a few minutes, she grins, giggles, and looks away. Basically she\u2019s flirting with a Pottery Barn light fixture. Equal parts cute and disturbing. It\u2019s really quite humbling how quickly every aspect of this little person that now lives with us is developing. I can\u2019t help but notice how much I\u2019ve changed too. I never had that sensation of helplessness you hear from so many first parents. The first day we brought her home I didn\u2019t wonder, \u201cOK, now what do we do?\u201d Of course, that\u2019s only because I\u2019m married to a pediatrician and I\u2019m expecting that she can guide me through every baby-related life change that is in our future. However, when M. was crying at 3:00 AM her first night home, I do know that I wondered if I could really do this for the next X years, depending on how many kids we end up having. Seven weeks later, waking up every three hours is a breeze. (An additional benefit of being unemployed is not having to deal with people in the morning!) I was afraid to change a diaper six weeks ago. I\u2019m not going to say I enjoy it now or anything ridiculous like that, but I can clean our daughter\u2019s booty at record speed. When we first gave M. a bath, I forced S. to do it since between the screaming, the kicking, and the slippery baby, I was convinced I would do something awful. Today, I love giving M. a bath. She gets so happy when I drop her bottom into a tub full of warm water. Her eyes get big, she stares at me with a look of total wonderment, and when I wash her face, she now breaks into a huge grin. It becomes clich\u00e9, but I must reiterate what an amazing feeling it is to be responsible for another life. I think M. is beginning to understand how amazing it is to have me as a father, too! Oh, speaking of growing up fast, she asked that I pass word along that she\u2019s really looking forward to meeting all the people in Kansas City she\u2019s heard about when we come to visit next week. I do still owe you many, many stories from M.\u2019s birth. I worked for about 10 days on my all-encompassing post covering what happened from the moment S.\u2019s water broke until we came home the next Wednesday. I hit about 8,000 words and still hadn\u2019t reached the point on Sunday when we formally named her and thought better of sharing it. So it becomes my goal to flesh out some of the more important and interesting anecdotes in the larger work and share those over the next few days before we depart for KC. I\u2019ll do my best to keep them under 8,000 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,14],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-family","tag-parenting"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14255,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions\/14255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}