Week One

Asher is almost a week old already! I was certainly pretty sure he was on the way by this time last week...

We've been trying to take at least one photo of him each day. (But why stop at one? He's so cute!)

Here's how the first week has gone:

Asher's first outfit (he didn't wear it for long!)

Asher was born in a birthing pool early on Monday morning. He came out wrinkly (but not as wrinkly as some babies) and spent most of his first 12 hours wide awake, just staring at me and Noah. He finally fell asleep just before we left the hospital and, much to our relief (as we were in a daze of exhaustion by that point), he stayed asleep for a couple of hours after we got home. That evening was a blur of feeding him and sleeping, and I honestly can't remember how we got through the night! But we did, and woke up so happy and proud of our baby boy.

Contemplating Uncle Thom

On Tuesday Asher was a whole one day old! Uncle Thom came to see his nephew and was very pleased to be Asher's first real visitor.

Me being all maternal...

On Wednesday morning we were starting to feel a little despairing. Asher had hardly slept all night, apart from a few minutes at a time when he was being cuddled. He seemed to want to feed fairly constantly and we were starting to wonder how people possibly manage to look after newborn babies. Fortunately, that evening, Grandma arrived! Hooray for (grand)parents! My mum has been happy to spend hours just cuddling Asher whilst me and Noah sleep - not to mention cooking for us and doing absolutely loads of laundry! Thanks Mum!

Kicking back on Thursday

Now with three fully grown adults available 24/7 to care for Asher, we finally managed to get a bit of sleep on Wednesday night and woke up feeling much better on Thursday. Here's Asher hanging out in one of his favourite starry babygrows. He's a bit of a fashion icon and likes to have at least three outfit changes each day, preferably into brand new clothes. He has a few different ways of letting us know when he's bored with what he's wearing...

All wrapped up for his very first outing

On Friday we decided that we wanted to get out of the house and take Asher for his first stroll around the block. We put him into his pram suit (labelled '1 month' and so massive that when I was putting him in the pram Noah was concerned that I was twisting his leg, until I explained that his tiny limbs didn't extend into the legs of his suit...) and covered him with blankets then went out for a 15-minute stroll. Asher met a neighbour and two people from church whilst we were out. So many new people!

Bonus photo of Noah striking a "stroller advertisement" pose

Friday night was interesting... Asher fed fairly constantly until about 3:30 in the morning. I was beginning to despair of getting any sleep at all, but Noah took him downstairs where he slept in the pram until about 5am. Then after another feed he went to sleep in his moses basket for three hours! We were amazed! If only we can get him to do this in the night...

Saturday's photoshoot

Unfortunately we had to wake Asher (and ourselves!) up before he finished sleeping because we needed to take him to the clinic on Saturday. The midwife said all was well. Asher had a busy day on Saturday, with more visitors after the clinic. He also decided whilst I was taking the above photo that the first time I laid him on his lovely handmade quilt from his Grandma Leeann would be a good time for another outfit change... grr! Hope we can wash the blanket!

And now it's Sunday, and our seventh day of being parents. Asher is confusing us a lot with his feeding/sleeping plans, but we're getting through it (with a lot of help from Grandma!) and we are both thoroughly delighted with our wonderful baby boy.

Three days

Our son is three days old.*

Asher with his daddy on day 2

Asher James was born at 2:39 on Monday morning, weighing 8lb 6oz.

Special things about the first few days:

The top of Asher's head, with its little bit of downy black hair, is the softest thing ever. I can't stop stroking it!

He has beautiful steel-grey eyes which are open surprisingly often, just looking at things. For his first 12 hours in the hospital he hardly slept - just lay and looked at us peacefully.

Just after he was born the midwife gave him to me to hold. She asked if we knew his name. Noah said no, because we hadn't officially decided, but as soon as he looked up at me I just knew that his name was Asher. Fortunately Noah thought the same!

Look at those lovely eyes!

*OK, so he's four days old now... but it was three days when I wrote this! Looking after babies takes up a lot of time...

2013 is getting close

Time is whiling away...

Whilst we continue to wait, here's a Pleasing Photo for this week:

Messing about with balls on the Wick. It was extremely muddy! I had been thinking I might take the baby for walks on the Wick quite often, but I'd forgotten to account for how much mud there often is. I'm not sure it would be a fun experience with a pushchair! I'll have to get good at using the sling.

So, I didn't do a great job of keeping up my Pleasing Photos for the duration of 2012. But I'm starting again and my goal for 2013 is to keep it up beyond August, which is when I just kind of stopped this year. On the plus side, I'll have an interesting subject for my photographs! But it's just ever so slightly possible that caring for the interesting subject might somehow prevent me from photographing it as often as I'd like. We'll have to see.

Other goals for 2013 include praying with/for the baby every day, and taking the little one up a mountain before its first birthday. Ambitious? Maybe... but it should be possible (it doesn't have to be a big mountain!). Perhaps I should think of some non baby related goals too - but I'm finding a lot of my time taken up with thinking about baby related things these days :)

Waiting

Waiting for a baby is a bit like queueing for a rollercoaster*.

First, the excitement of finally being in the queue, knowing what's coming up: you know it's going to be both fun and scary but you're not there yet. Lots of joking and laughing as you get ready for what's coming.

Then, you kind of get used to being in the queue... you get on with it; it's not particularly interesting but you know it will be worth it in the end. You know roughly how long it's going to take, but not exactly. At times it seems like you have to wait for years!

At last you approach the end of the queue. You can see where people are getting on and suddenly the fear and the excitement are multiplied. It's about to happen! But still you have to wait... you're still not sure exactly when it will be your turn.

And then... you're sitting down. You're strapped in. The rollercoaster is going and there's nothing you can do to stop it!

I reckon at the moment I'm nearing the turnstiles at the end of the queue. I can see that I'll be getting on that ride any minute now. People have told me what it's like but I still don't know for myself. I'm extremely excited but also quite scared. I wish I could just rush forward and say "Now!" but I know I have to keep waiting for my turn.

Come on, baby. I want you to wait until you're ready, but... I really hope you're ready soon!


*No, I don't mean because both make you feel sick...

Baby Christmas Presents

To say it hasn't yet been born, the baby did pretty well for Christmas presents this year!

First up (in the stocking) was a rather hilarious moustache dummy. Someone always gets a comedy moustache.

I think it will look quite startling, especially when coupled with the buff baby rattle. The effect will be particularly striking if we have a girl.

Later in the day, baby was the (presumably) grateful recipient of a gyro-bowl. Allegedly unspillable (although my aunt did manage to demonstrate that this is not *always* the case), the bowl twists and turns as the unthinking toddler waves its arms about whilst holding said bowl by the handles. Ingenious!

I was most touched, however, by a gift that carries with it a dose of family history. This is Shetley (full name Shetley, Shetley, Off You Trot), the rocking horse bought as a Christmas present for my youngest brother Thom 20 years ago. Long since passed on to younger cousins, I had no idea that Shetley was even still in existence. But somehow or other Thom discovered that he (Shetley that is, not Thom himself) was in storage in the loft of a distant relative. With Mum's help Shetley was restored (a work in progress: the poor pony is still earless!) and presented to us on Christmas Day for the future use of our own child. Of course it'll be a while before the little one is old enough to ride it, but I look forward to passing on the story of how the baby's Uncle Thom used to ride the very same horse when he was two years old.

We still don't have the baby yet, but I have a feeling it won't be long. It's hard to explain how, but things have been feeling kind of different for the last couple of days (ever since I was Mary in the crib service on Christmas Eve and had to do an arm-waving, leg-kicking dance as part of the act!) - my assembled siblings would love the baby to be born before they leave, but as most of them are going home tomorrow we are running out of time for that. Although tomorrow is the 27th, which is when Noah says the baby will be born. Let's see if he's right!

Christmas Tree

I got so bored of waiting for the baby to arrive that I started taking photos of our Christmas tree. A pleasing photo for this week! (I'm disappointed though because in real life the star is sparkly but I'm not sure how to photograph that effectively).

On Maternity Leave

I've been on maternity leave for nearly three weeks now. So far there's still no sign of the baby (apart from some pretty vicious kicks of course) - but we are still ten days away from the due date. Noah is pretty disappointed that our offspring has missed not one but two cool birthdays (12/12/12 and 20/12/2012) and is now hoping it will be born on the 27th (not, I think, for any particular reason). Myself, I'm just hoping he or she doesn't go for Christmas Day: it must surely be a rubbish day to have a birthday.* Before or after would be just fine.

Anyway. The house is relatively tidy. I think my 'nesting instinct' has just about propelled me into doing about as much housework as the average person might do during an ordinary week! But the baby's room is (almost) ready, the tiny clothes have all been washed and the hospital bag is packed and ready. We even have a Christmas tree, and a paper chain, and all the presents are wrapped - surely the earliest I've ever achieved that particular goal.

As for the pleasing photos... it's been a while! I'm going to start again in January and see if I can keep it up for longer next year. I would not be remotely surprised if a certain baby were to feature in the majority of next year's photographic offerings - all the better for keeping distant grandparents in touch :)

More to follow when something interesting happens!

* Me being selfish really. I love Christmas too much... my traditional Christmas experience takes up the entire day and I can't work out how we'd squeeze in proper birthday time for the poor child!