Week One: Beautiful Boy
After months of anticipation and preparation, William Howard arrived at 10:27pm on May 16th, 2005. While arrived, does not quite accurately depict the true nature of his birth, we have our baby at last, our little Will, who is truely is as perfect as can be.
Now that our lives have returned to some sense of normalcy, I'd say the things that suprise me most is how quickly I had forgotten about the hours spent doing nothing but nursing, the fear of leaving the house and have the newborn melt down in public, and and how an entire day can pass with nothing to show for it - the baby continues to be hungry, wet, dirty, and the laundry continues to pile up.
On the other hand, this time I do feel more calm, knowing that this too shall pass. Part of me wants this newborn phase to last forever. Too soon Emily has become this enormous kid, and I know the time I have with Will, curled up asleep in my arms, making little squeaky noises, ends too soon.
Every day I'm amazed at how perfect little Will is. I find myself spending countless hours just staring at his little face and stroking his soft hair. On friday after we brought him home, Will still hadn't pooped since we were at the hospital. I called Will's doctor and talked to the nurse, and I expected her to say "oh, it's nothing, happens all the time". Instead she told us to bring Will in right away so the doctor could check him out. Thankfully it turned out to be nothing, and the peditrician made me feel a little silly for being concerned about it. That is just the kind of reassurance you need as a parent though, to have a good laugh about being worried that the baby isn't pooping enough, when now we're up to our elbows in runny yellow baby poop.
Luckily, we haven't had to be reminded often of how fragile life is, especially with children. Sometimes my heart just aches at the thought of something happening to Emily, and now with Will, I wonder what we got ourselves into. But then there are those moments, like this morning when Will was curled up between us, making little grunting noises in his sleep, that make me realize how lucky I am to have so much to lose.
Now that our lives have returned to some sense of normalcy, I'd say the things that suprise me most is how quickly I had forgotten about the hours spent doing nothing but nursing, the fear of leaving the house and have the newborn melt down in public, and and how an entire day can pass with nothing to show for it - the baby continues to be hungry, wet, dirty, and the laundry continues to pile up.
On the other hand, this time I do feel more calm, knowing that this too shall pass. Part of me wants this newborn phase to last forever. Too soon Emily has become this enormous kid, and I know the time I have with Will, curled up asleep in my arms, making little squeaky noises, ends too soon.
Every day I'm amazed at how perfect little Will is. I find myself spending countless hours just staring at his little face and stroking his soft hair. On friday after we brought him home, Will still hadn't pooped since we were at the hospital. I called Will's doctor and talked to the nurse, and I expected her to say "oh, it's nothing, happens all the time". Instead she told us to bring Will in right away so the doctor could check him out. Thankfully it turned out to be nothing, and the peditrician made me feel a little silly for being concerned about it. That is just the kind of reassurance you need as a parent though, to have a good laugh about being worried that the baby isn't pooping enough, when now we're up to our elbows in runny yellow baby poop.
Luckily, we haven't had to be reminded often of how fragile life is, especially with children. Sometimes my heart just aches at the thought of something happening to Emily, and now with Will, I wonder what we got ourselves into. But then there are those moments, like this morning when Will was curled up between us, making little grunting noises in his sleep, that make me realize how lucky I am to have so much to lose.
posted by Kate @ 7:24 PM
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