Mommyhood: week 1

Locke is a week and a day old now. Everything is different and new now, and in the best of ways. Everything we do now is a first for the baby, and I find myself scrambling for the camera quite a bit to try and capture everything I can. He had his first walk around the neighborhood in the stroller (the weather finally cut us a break and we've had a few 80 degree days!). He's had his first bath (mildly traumatic for all involved, since he screamed the whole time). He's gone for his first doctor's appointment (he was already an ounce heavier than his birthweight...I knew he'd be a champion eater!). He's had his first trip to Grandma's (and spent the whole time over there fussy. Luckily Grandma doesn't mind). He played his first Dungeons and Dragons mission with his daddy and Trevor (should I even admit this?). And on and on.

Matthew and I have slipped into a pretty good routine that has worked for us so far. Locke doesn't seem to want to sleep much at night (being pretty ravenously hungry from the hours of 1 to 7 am almost constantly), so I am up with him pretty much all night long. But after a late am feeding (sometime between 7 and 9 am), Matthew gets out of bed and takes the baby with him, and tries to keep Locke for me for a couple hours to let me get a solid block of sleep. He wakes me up when Locke needs to be fed again, and brings me breakfast. Later in the day I might take one or two short naps when Locke does. I figure we're each managing about 5 hours of sleep a day, which is probably pretty good for new parents. I'm tired, but not out of my mind exhausted.
It's hard to articulate just how I feel about my little guy. I love him, of course, but there's something more elemental and fiercer beneath that love that just doesn't translate properly into words. He is a miracle and a wonder. My favorite thing to do these days is just to sit and look at him, and touch his little hands or feet or face or (probably my favorite) rub the back of his head. I talk to him all the time, and tell him about all the places we want to take him, and the things we want to show him, and the type of parent I hope I'll be for him.

Ha. I'm a sentimental softie ;).

The cats are doing pretty well, considering. Sansa (my cat) is more or less completely normal. She doesn't approach the baby, and will get up and move if we bring the baby too close (within a foot, say), but otherwise she seems to be unaffected. Arya (Matthew's mean hissy territorial kitty) is doing far better than we expected. The first two days she hid most of the time, and when she was in the same room as the baby, she hissed and growled. But now she's calmed down quite a bit, even to the point where she will approach the adult carrying the baby sometimes if she wants to be petted. We let her back into the bedroom to sleep with us for the first time last night, and she made it all the way to 7:30 am before she approached the bassinet and started hissing at it. I ejected her from the bedroom at that point, but we'll give her another chance tomorrow. She spent most of the night in her usual sleeping spot, between our legs at the end of the bed, only about 3 feet from the baby in the bassinet, so I think she did well, all things considering. Matthew always predicted she'd be back to normal (well as normal as cats get anyway) by the time Locke was 2 weeks old, and I'm starting to think he may actually have been right.

Ok, now, because I can't resist, a few more pictures of my son before I sign off here.