28 Days Later

The boy is 4 weeks old now. I'm now back at work. So I guess we've entered the 3rd stage of normality where this is what stuff will be like from now on.

Which isn't entirely the case. I'm still trying to find my new routine. I've been doing the doing the morning school run every day, which I wasn't expecting. So apparently I'm no longer that guy who gets in early to work. I am I guy who always stays late? Am I the person who's always working from home? I'm not sure yet, but I guess having kids forces you to learn things about yourself.

The boy is getting bigger. He started out quite big at 4.2kg, and has put on another 820g. So we're now into the next size up nappies. He's been wearing 1-3 month size clothes since birth and we're now on the verge of getting out the 3 month size stuff. We're in a hurry to get him in all the cute infant stuff we've got or else we'll never get a chance to use them. This is very different from R who was reasonably petite throughout her infancy.

Needless to say, I am constantly comparing the new child to my daughter. This is the same, this is different. Based on x, y should happen next. Etc etc. I found I spent more time with R just drinking it all in and living in the moment as if it would last forever. With the boy I recognise where he is and I am anticipating what comes next. Next should come smiles and hand control. That should be fun. But really, I don't mind if we just jump straight to walking and babyproofing.

We started EC from week one with the boy, and it seems to be working decently well. Whereas the daughter we started from month 5, so she had to unlearn using nappies in favour of the loo, the son was introduced to toilets as soon as we could and is managing a degree of bladder control. He'll fuss when he needs to pee, and if we get him there in time, he'll hold it til he's over the toilet. We've been catching at about 50%, so we're only going through several nappies a day instead of many-many per day.

Like with his sister we're putting him in disposables at night and reusables during the day. I'm finding the reusables we've got now leak far lass than they did with his sister. I can't tell if that's 8 years of nappy tech improvements or it's a boy/girl thing.

Level 2 normality

The boy was born 2 weeks ago today. We've now reached a steady state to the 2nd stage of normality.

For context, the first stage of normality was after the child was born, his grandparents came to visit. So we'd gotten used to having the baby around and seeing my parents or my in-laws every day. Our main concerns were what nappies to use, how and where to have meals with the family, and getting the daughter to school.

On Tuesday the last of the grandparents left and we've settled into the second stage of normality. School runs. Cooking dinner at home for 3 people. Laundry (unending laundry). Cleaning. You know – basic life stuff. Well.. except for work – I've a couple of weeks left of leave. We seem to be settling in to it ok. The school runs seem to nicely bookmark the domestic management of cleaning and whatnot. Once R is home, life descends into the usual chaos it's been for the past few years, except she's constantly asking to hold her brother – which has its own complications.

R can only really interact with or hold her brother when he's awake and not feeding. Now, as 2 week old spends the bulk of their time either sleeping or eating, the window of opportunity is much smaller than R would prefer. That plus R's stubbornness that she knows what she's doing has led to a few arguments. She's loving and really wants to be with her brother, which is delightful. When all is in order, it's lovely. She'll sing to him and hold him and rock him to sleep. On the other hand she'll advise me on how to settle him, and refuse to listen when holding him dangerously. Please just listen to the 2 people in the room with you who have actually gotten a child to survive infancy. A few days of experience does not make you an expert.
At least she means well

Next week we'll focus on getting ready for 3rd stage normality – me going back to work. The baby will need to go with L on the school runs, and I won't be around to cook dinner every night. That's going to be the tough bit.

Now we are four

The baby was born at 615 Friday morning after a sleepless night of labour and Firefly. Home birth has its benefits. We are now in the company a surprisingly padded baby who is the same size his sister was at a month old!

He's been very good at giving us opportunities to sleep so we're not completely wiped out. That said, I'm going to bed the moment I post this.

I keep looking at him and wondering who he looks like. I see small flashes of me and the wife, but more in common with his sister in her first week than anyone else so far. He's very much in the newborn mode, so it's far from how he'll end up looking.

I'll post the birth story when I get the time. Until then I am going to ponder how a raging feminist can raise a boy. I've already got lots of ideas.