7 minutes old — just enough time for me to pretend that I hadn’t just been in labor for 16 hours! Nah … his arrival was enough to elicit this wide grin.

Five weeks and two days after the arrival of our little bundle of nerve-wracking joy, I am attempting my first bleary-eyed post. We think Eli is starting to smile, signifying the turning of the tide of good things to come. (Normally, I wouldn’t be so certain about the veracity of this smile, but our doctor pointed it out — twice! So I’m sticking with that story!) So I’m commemorating this milestone with a blog post. Rest assured, in the thirty-six days preceding this post, I had a mental running commentary on all the things I want to write. These included: (1) my birthing experience (NOT at all what I had expected); (2) what I wish I had known about newborns BEFORE having a baby; (3) what you should know before considering having a kid. Eventually, I plan to write the first two posts. I especially want to write #2 before the memory of all the early challenges are erased by all the rewarding experiences we’re starting to have! But I think I’ll leave #3 be, lest I scare off all baby-less people who are thinking of procreating! 😉

So I’ll keep this first blog post short, with some highlights (that I can recall) from over the last month:

• June 21 (2 days old): Eli was crying on the changing pad, and I bent down to his ears to shush him. He immediately calmed down, and Ben says, “Ahh…there it is.” I, thinking Ben was encouraging me to continue to calm him, resolutely stayed bent down when a warm stream entered my gaping, shushing mouth. Ahh … our first Projectile Pee experience! Apparently, Ben’s “there it is” was because he had been waiting for, and wondering when, this would happen. So … THERE IT IS! (Tip: We cut up an entire cotton jersey bed sheet (that we were no longer using) to soak up any pee that may occur during changes. It’s sort of our makeshift pee pee teepee.)

Two hours old …several days before being peed on! 😉

• June 26: In celebration of his one-week birthday, we received a nice, big mustardy squirt across the room! (You can see that most of our adventures take place on the changing table.) Riley’s new(ish) bed was not spared. We threw the bed in the washing machine, despite the spot cleaning only warning. Riley’s bed survived. There was another Projectile Poo experience that I did not personally witness, though I was part of the clean-up crew. You would not believe the places he managed to get to. Ten years from now, we’ll still be cleaning yellow spots behind the dresser and on the walls.
• July 23 (1 month + 4 days): Eli smiled for the first at Dr. Mayo (his pediatrician)! Smart guy — he knows he needs to win over his doctor! 🙂
• There are other milestones that I wish I had the dates for, like the first time he went three hours before needing to nurse. (The first week or so, he was nursing every hour or less. That could also be because my milk didn’t really come in until after a week. This really helped with milk production. Plus, a good lactation consultant. I went back to the hospital twice for extra consultations, and it made a world of difference.) At this point, he’s going only about two hours, but he’ll throw in a three-hour pause every once in a while as a little reward for me.
  • July 27 update — my little darling gifted me with a FOUR-hour pause last night. He nursed at 23:56 and didn’t stir again until 3:52! What a champ!