Mostly Baby Stuffage

So I'm sitting here with a mildly sleeping Harriet on my lap and I just realized that my tea and breakfast burrito are staring at me from the kitchen counter.  Uh, do I risk waking her up to go get them?  Such is the question of the first morning of Going Solo.

I'm not going entirely solo since Clara is coming later this morning.  Steve tootled off to work an eight-hour day of training for his new position.  It's still a night shift, but at least it will only be an eight-hour night shift and will be on a predictable weekly schedule.  The new routine feels fine and dandy when I think about it during the day time.  It's only when I'm crawling into bed thinking that this is one of the last few nights of normalcy (as normal as sleeping with a baby goes) that I start bawling.  Oh dear.

There is a lot of Baby Stuff floating around in my brain right now (imagine that), so I don't really know where to start.  I do know that I'm not particularly in the mood to share some detailed birth story.  That said, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the best way to handle a 24-hour labor is to be oblivious to the fact that intense back cramps are actually contractions until a few hours before the precious baby makes her appearance.  And that an epidural is proof of the doctrine of God's common grace.  Want more?  You'll just have to find a more private way of contacting moi.

Harriet is the best baby.  She is generally calm, has about six massive poopy diapers a day, and eats as if her next meal will be months away instead of minutes away.  Every day reveals that she is more Steve than me - actually, I'm beginning to wonder how much of me is in her at all.  She has Steve's nose and mouth and eyes and hairline and concerned forehead.  They sleep in the same position and make the same funny expressions when waking up (or attempting to wake up).  Her most awake time is between 12am-1am.  She does have dark hair, though, and it may be curly.  I'll hold out for that.  My favorite thing is when she is nursing and she wraps her little pinky finger around my index finger as if to say, "I've got you, Mom. You can't go anywhere now."  I'll have to get Clara to take a picture when she does it next.

I'm doing really well, now that the first few days of overall blechy soreness are a thing of the past.  Lots of sitting around and taking ibuprofen and extra iron have helped with all of that.  I was really grateful that we have had so many days here at home to chill and get used to our new family dynamics.  We have spent more time just being this week than we have during any other time in this year of marriage and it has been refreshing.  Steve is amazing.  He has grabbed this fatherhood role by the horns and is just the kind of supportive, pro-active person I need right now and for always.  (And I would rent him out as a birth coach if that wouldn't be so...weird.)  I feel like I've fallen in love all over again with him and with Harriet.  Now there are two people who are so embedded in my heart that the very thought of us ever not being together makes me melt into a hormonal puddle.  Sigh.

Anyways, the beautimous baby doth stirreth.  I need to go fetch the breakfast before she realizes that she is beyond famished.

More later.