Thanks, friends, for all the well wishes. I have so looked forward to opening my inbox every day and reading your comments and emails, and it still amazes and surprises me that people that I’ve only met online would care about what happens to our little family, so thank you as well for being there when we had such good news to share.

Here we are, one fast and hazy week later:
1 week old
I feel like she looks so different already. F claims that she already has an arsenal of disapproving looks.

I have been simply amazed by how this first postpartum week has been from the last time. Miss Bee, from all evidence so far (and I’m praying that I’m not cursing myself by committing this to writing) is a contented, sleepy baby. What a novel concept! In fact, while we were in the hospital, I kept hearing a baby, whom I could swear was down the hall, crying furiously and inconsolably, night and day, and it reminded me so much of how Otis was after he was born – it was like I was being haunted by the Ghost of Otis Past. I finally forced F to go investigate the case of the Crying Baby, and it turns out that they were in the room next door (so, right behind my head) and their door was always open so the crying just seemed louder. I was grateful, nonetheless, for the rest that Miss Bee granted us so that we felt rather human by the time we were discharged from the hospital.

Before Otis came to visit us at the hospital, F engaged in this ridiculous caper of Hide the Baby, since we were advised by our pediatrician and by a nurse at the hospital to not have Bee in the room with us when he came for his first visit. He’ll want to see Mom and Dad, they said, and he may not necessarily want to meet the baby, and in fact may feel excluded if he sees the three of you together. We thought it made sense, but because of busy nurse schedules and the complication of the nursery being on a different floor, F ended up running around with Bee in her bassinet, finally pretending that he was casually standing around alone in the hallway, when Otis arrived with my mom. And wouldn’t you know it? Without a second glance at either of us, he just kept demanding, “Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?” This all seems very Otis to me.

Otis has been really great: excited but gentle, full of hugs and kisses, and always wanting to be helpful. But suddenly everything about him seems to be amplified – although two weeks ago, I still thought of him as my baby, he now looks so large and mature; it also feels like someone came while I was in the hospital and turned his volume wayyyyyy up. I know that the fatigue and hormones are making me sensitive and short on patience, and I feel incredibly guilty that I’m finding it a little difficult to deal with his energy right now. F, my mom, and Fifth Aunt Grandma K have done a fantastic job of stepping in, but I think we definitely need to find a way to spend some quality time together, getting along and enjoying each other.

But all in all, a good week. I did wake up last Friday feeling like I had lost a bar brawl, but I feel like I’m getting some sleep and physically healing. We’ve been out and about, and F and I even celebrated our wedding anniversary Monday night with a nice dinner at the new hot spot in town, with Miss Bee in tow. Not much to complain about. Maybe this next week I’ll even convince myself to take more naps during the day.