Miscellany

Avis and Dick left this morning and I'm on my own for nearly the first time since Evan's birth (my mom was also here for two weeks and Dave has been home quite a bit). Eep! He's had a few fussy/gassy days recently and has been hard to console at times. It's definitely frustrating, especially considering he also has such sweet, calm days/hours and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it at all. I'm generally hoping for the best!

A few things I've/we've learned:

1. Have few expectations for each day's accomplishments
2. Baby is in charge
3. Gas sucks
4. Leaving the house is akin to a military operation
5. Two (or three or four) sets of hands is better than one
6. Eat (sleep, exercise, shower, do chores) at the first available moment
7. Parental sleep usually always trumps eating
8. Always have plenty of burp cloths within arm's reach
9. The bouncer is awesome
10. Babies are noisy sleepers
11. Planning baby outfit wearing before outgrowing is stressful
12. Burping can be difficult
13. Take lots of pictures

Speaking of pictures, I've also learned that taking a 4-week old to get professional photos taken is not necessarily the best idea. Oops! On Monday, we took Evan to Picture People at the mall and he was not really thrilled (read: crying, requiring food, wetting on the blanket, looking grumpy, etc.). Heh. It was taxing on all of us, but fortunately we had a sweet, patient photographer and she managed to get a few cute pictures. I was hoping for a few more non-grumpy face pictures, but according to numbers 1 and 2 above, you take what you can get. Best laid plans and all. See, I'm learning!

Anyhow, here are tiny versions of the pictures I ended up ordering. If you would like any of these (or any others taken that day--there are more "poses"), let me know and I can order them. I'm sure Evan will be very happy about the naked photo in the years to come; I sense blackmail material! Heh.



Yesterday, we visited Dave at work, which was fun. Evan was very well behaved and adorable (wearing a stroller-coordinated outfit including his new guitar-decorated Robeez shoes, which received many compliments). All of Dave's colleagues were so excited to finally meet Evan, after hearing all about his IVF conception, my pregnancy, and generously throwing us a shower. He is a bit of a celebrity at National Jewish!

I've been terrible about updating this blog, but I'm planning (hoping) to get into a more regular routine. I would love to blog about the actual labor, delivery, first few weeks, etc., so hopefully I can do that and post a bit out of order. I just need some dedicated time!

But in the meantime, in case you missed them, our Shutterfly account has been updated to include nursery pictures and Evan pictures. I plan to upload more pictures soon. He's growing so incredibly fast!

In (relatively) unrelated news, I am very excited that the Hollywood writers' strike has ended. Yeah, I know TV is bad for baby, but thanks to the wonder that is TiVo/DVR, it's much easier to watch on the sly when Evan is asleep or not paying attention. Hee. I'm sure it will get trickier in the future, but for now, my shows are also my sanity.

It's a gorgeous mid-50s day today, so I'd like to go for a walk with Evan. That is, when/if he stops screaming from gas pains. Poor guy.

Laura