2.  Eyelashes.  Baby eyelashes in particular.  Henry had no eyelashes the day he was born.  Every day, his lashes have grown a teeny tiny bit, til now they’re looking eyelash-like.  Rather amazing to be allowed to witness that.

3.  So glad it’s getting cold enough for Nellie to want to be in the bed with us again.  Nothing is more instantly comfortable/comforting than getting into a dog-warmed bed – which is important when my sleep-times have been reduced to every other hour through the darkness of night.  Yawn.  Thank goodness for baby-endorphins, because I’m amazed at how relatively functional I am for having had almost no sleep – and certainly no contiguous periods of sleep – for the last 3 weeks.

4.  I feel like baking today.  Not sure what will be baked, but it sounds like fun to putter in the kitchen, and the Boy’s already committed to making dinner.  Brownies?  Pie?  Cookies?  Bread?  Damn, I can’t wait to get into a baking/cooking routine.

5.  Perfect fall day outside.  Warm sun, cool air.  I love this time of year ANY year, but this year?  Let’s just say it’s worth having lived through the summer-from-hell-while-pregnant in order to get to enjoy cool weather with new baby.

4.

2.  Bratwurst & mac&cheese for dinner tonight, which will make my mother (and me!) terrifically happy.  Wisconsin food for the Wisconsin lady.  (Yum!)

3.  I noticed yesterday that my left hand was getting most of its feeling back. It still has a bit of numbness, but I can USE it.  I can find the keys in the bottom of my purse without looking at them.  This means my right hand could come back at any time, and I am quite excited about this!

4.  I finally had the courage (and my belly has diminished enough to make it practical!) to closely examine my incision.  The staples were removed 3 days after the surgery, and the tape was removed at last week’s OB exam, during which time the nurse exclaimed happily over how well it was healing.  But since I have massive keloid scars on one arm from a couple of surgeries almost 15 years ago, I was quite nervous that the c-section incision was going to scar up terribly.  But it really hasn’t.  Hardly noticeable, except for the fact that it’s still all numb, and not at all disfiguring.  I did end up with little dots of stretch marks in an area about the size of my palm to the lower-left of my bellybutton, but it’s not bad at all.  I got off lucky in this pregnancy, even though my boobs will never be the same…

5.  Along those same lines, I’m now officially losing IVF weight!  I gained 20 pounds during this pregnancy, and it turns out that everything that wasn’t actual baby was just edema, since I peed it all out in the first week.  Now I’m losing slowly and steadily as my body returns to unmedicated normal – assisted by round-the-clock breastfeeding, I’m sure – and I can’t say how good it feels that I’m beginning to feel like my old self again.

2.  A cool, rainy day, which will be good for my mom – they were utterly exhausted last night, which makes sense, having been up for almost 36 hours due to early morning flight at an airport 2 hours from home.  So wonderful to have them here, cooing over their grandson, and even more wonderful that the weather is cooperating.

3.  Walked the dog & the baby with a bit o’ help from my dad this morning.  And I’ll likely do a bit of solo grocery shopping later on, once my mom’s awake to hold to boychild while I’m away.  Got the coffeemaker set up for my father (and it IS kind of bumming me out that I’m not even tempted by the smell of coffee!) and am generally feeling productive.  Which is good.

4.  Newborn diapers with a color-change strip on the front to tell me when he peed?  Very cool.  The kind of high-tech I rather like.

5.  Ciabatta with butter and nutritional yeast for breakfast.  Since hearing that my hands might not return to normal for a year or more, (ack!) I’m suddenly interested in all those old-wives tales about vitamins B being possible culprits in carpal tunnel syndrome, so I’m upping my intake every way I can think of to try to get rid of this awful numbness faster.  Oh, and ciabatta breakfasts are sort of tasty, too.

2.  Sourdough toast with butter & honey.  yum.

3.  I haven’t had – or missed – a cup of coffee since Henry was born.  What’s up with that?  I should be totally jonesing by now…

4.  When Henry stretches with both little arms over his head I absolutely lose control and must kiss him immediately.

5.  My parents are arriving today!  Woohoo!  Damn, it’s going to be good to see them!

2.  Cool. overcast, cloudy day.  I don’t think I’ve ever been as ready for a change of seasons as I am right now.  Longest.  Summer.  Ever.

3.  I think Henry & I are starting to come to an agreement about waking/sleeping, day/night, 45 minutes between feedings/three hours between feedings.  I am happy to say that I appear to be winning the negotiations.

4.  My parents are coming in to town tomorrow – Woohoo!  We close on the house on Thursday – Woohoo!  It’s been waaaay too long since I’ve seen my folks, and I’m looking forward to having them here for a couple of weeks – long enough that we won’t be in a rush to get everything said & done for fear we won’t have enough time.  Also, I’m starting to get excited about starting a new life up in NH, and hope that the Boy enjoys it as much as I think I’m going to.  We’re talking with local movers about getting his piano brought up there (finally!  A piano again!  At last!) and I’m thinking it’s going to be wonderful just having a house to really settle into.  Paint the walls, build a treehouse.

5.  Besides the much-documented health benefits of breastfeeding, I’m finding that I absolutely love being able to instantly soothe the fussy baby.

5.

2.  My sister-in-law made Henry an incredibly gorgeous quilt,

and her daughter knit him this fantastic stroller blanket:

This little boy is so very loved – and not just by me.

3.  Henry slept well last night – I had to wake him up every 3 hours to eat, but that still meant I got to sleep almost 7 hours in 3 blocks of 2.5 hours each.  Wow is sleep ever nice!

4.  Holding a sleepy, milky baby in the wee hour before morning is officially here, waiting for the Boy to get up and start his morning, is one of the nicest ways to wake up that I can think of.  Beats coffee, even…

5.  My parents are coming on Wednesday, and I am SO EXCITED to see them that I can barely get things done around here.  I keep making lists of all the things we should do or see, even though I know all we’ll likely end up doing is staying home and cooing over the baby.  Which is also an activity on the list…

2.  My MobyWrap (And a heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who recommended it!) is saving me.   Schlepping the stroller down the stoop stairs is not happening quite yet – at least not comfortably.  I can do it, it just isn’t any fun at all.  But the Moby is pretty easy to put on and it definitely feels more secure than my ErgoCarrier – even with the infant insert – and I’m just not getting the hang of the balboa sling yet – those Infantino deaths have me spooked.  I’m pretty sure I’ll be using the Moby Wrap to get us to my OB appointment on Tuesday, and if he wants to look at my incision, he can just dig for it under the Moby.  So there.

3.  Although yesterday’s visits wore me out, and upset Henry’s feeding schedule (which led to the all-nighter we pulled) it was lovely to have so many family & family-friends come over to have a chance to say hello to the newest addition.  He ended up with some seriously adorable gifts, and we’re hoping that the Eldest SD’s long-time boyfriend will be inspired to hurry up on his ‘we need to do X, Y, Z before we get married/have babies’ plans, since we practically had to pry Henry out of his arms to give other folks a chance to snuggle him.

4.  It’s fun seeing people on the street who’ve been commiserating on the summertime pregnancy with me.  Folks who are used to seeing me with the wonder-whippet and a belly are so excited to see a real live baby as the end result of the summer’s crankiness.

5.  Speaking of…  it’s cooling down.  Not enough (it’s the end of September, already.  Can we please get a break in the weather?) but some.  Take what I can get.  So ready for it to be cool to cold again!

2.  And he has the cutest little prehensile toes.

3.  He’s starting to focus his eyes – and attention – on whomever is talking to him at any given moment.

4.  Thus far, at least he’s – apparently – a remarkably well-behaved little guy.  Waild when he’s hungry or dirty, but stops as soon as we take steps to correct his discomfort!

5.  Last night I broke down while reading him the picture book On the Night You Were Born, completely overwhelmed with how completely in love I am with this little tyrant, with my little – and extended – family, with my tiny corner of the world as it is right this minute.

2.  I am – weirdly enough, because I don’t look it – at my pre-pregnancy weight already.  I knew most of the weight I’d gained over this pregnancy was water-weight, because I simply wasn’t eating very much due to the heartburn, etc.  But still, this is nice – I was afraid it would take longer for the edema to disappear, but it’s been pretty painless.  A couple of days where the feet resembled flippers, and that was it.  And you know what my favorite part of being not-pregnant is?  (Aside from nom-able little baby on my lap, of course)  Peeing.  Peeing is great fun when it isn’t an every-45-minutes occurrence.

3.  My OB told his staff about what a beautiful baby Henry is.  When I made my follow-up exam appointment yesterday, the nurse couldn’t stop talking about how my doctor couldn’t stop talking about him.  Since my genes aren’t expressing themselves in this child, I feel free to wax eloquent about his beauty, but I’m glad that other people notice it too!

4.  Bagels with butter.  Actually, pretty much any food is good food these days.  A nice change from the ‘nothing sounds tasty’ of the last 9 months.

5.  Slowly, slowly, I’m catching up on real life.  The living room is slowly clearing out, things are being put back in their place, and it’s starting to feel like home again, and not a post-tornado scene.  This is good, but it’s amazing how much I’d rather just sit and stare at the wee one.

2.  Nellie loves Henry – or rather, Nellie is fascinated by Henry.  When he makes a sound, she hurries over to lick the back of his head in what I am sure is meant to be a reassuring manner.   Very cute, and I’m glad she doesn’t feel too threatened.

3.  Beautiful fall day out there.  Might even go out for a dog walk later…

4.  Eating my probiotics so as not to have tummy issues beyond what abdominal surgery has already given me. Any excuse to eat yogurt is a good one.

5.  The stairs aren’t as big a problem as I’d feared.  Slow but steady is going to make it ok.