Hi-ho, hi-ho...

On Wednesday of this past week, I got to take Max (and Holly, I guess) in to work with me for the afternoon to meet some of my colleagues. As excited as I was to show the little guy off, Holly was on logistics: determining exactly what feeding schedule to use in order to have him in the happiest mood possible for my coworkers. Meanwhile, I was hoping that the chosen schedule would have Holly in a relatively good mood herself :)

So we settled on delaying his late-morning feeding until Holly and Max arrived at work at about 12:15. This way, he'd be full of yummy goodness at 1:00, when we would be holding court with the people who work in my section (they had booked a boardroom for an hour to ogle and pass the baby). The plan worked. Well, mostly. We knew that the one risk in feeding him right before showing him off was the imminent spit-up. So we fed Max, decked him out in his awesome blue/brown combo with blue and brown shoes our friends I&G bought for him and before we could say "who's the sexiest baby in all the land?", Max ralphed all over his shirt. In fact, had he been competing in some future Olympic event where competitors all had the word COOL written on their chest and had to cover it up with vomit as spectacularly as possible, he'd be a gold medal baby right now. Cool, indeed. Regardless, the outfit was a big hit, but not as big a hit as the matching Robeez shoes. It's remarkable that the shoes were purchased separately from the rest of the outfit because they coordinate so well. Everyone loves the shoes.

In any case, it was really nice to get to introduce Holly to the people I work with every day; I often mention people at work (only good stuff) and now Holly can attach faces to the names. It was also interesting to note who couldn't wait to get their hands on the baby (almost only women seem to have this gene) and who was just fine laying low. Before leaving, we got some WONDERFUL gifts from my section, including a rolling toy that propels itself (it says on the package that this promotes crawling, but I think it promotes application of first aid skills) and a jingly, crinkly, stuffed banana (it hangs from carrier handles or play gyms and has all sorts of special features, including mirrors on the soles of its shoes - Paul Simon inspired? - and four plush peel sections with velcro that can be stuck to the banana's head so that he can actually be peeled...so awesome).

After our sit-down with my section, we went for a tour of my old building, where there were scads of people I thought should meet Max. The trouble was, it was mid-afternoon, just before Christmas so many people were either out of the office or at Christmas events/parties. However, given that it was the federal public service, many, MANY people were still diligently working at their desks. In the end, Holly and Max got to meet a lot more of my colleagues. As for the ones we missed, well, we're headed back in on Monday for a Christmas Eve brunch. Everyone shows up with their spouses and kids (and, from a security message sent to all staff the other day, it appears that people have tried to bring pets in the past) for some chow. Then, although we are given the option of calling it a day very early on, everyone will probably get back to work, setting their families to work wherever their skills can be used. This is the federal public service after all.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures on Wednesday, but I will be sure to take some on Monday. After all, Santa will be there.

In the meantime, to tide you over, here is a random video Holly took this past week. Yes, that is a garbage bag filled with bubble wrap. Enjoy!

The first week with Max

So we're finally getting around to something resembling a schedule around here. We aren't actively enforcing a schedule on the baby or anything (the midwives and the left-leaning books we've been reading say that this is BAD), but we also aren't waking him up in the night to feed him either. We may be new to parenting, but we're not dum. I mean dumb.

Night one was a little wild, coming home with the little guy at 4 am and then thinking "OK, so I guess he's ours, now what?". Actually, I was the only one who had enough energy left to think that. Holly passed out within minutes of hitting the bed. We've mentioned it before, but Holly really found it to be a blessing to be in a familiar place with Max a.s.a.p. I think we all got about two or three hours on the bed before morning came. It would have been nice to get some more sleep but those blasted 31 years of ingrained Circadian rhythm seem to get in the way. We tried to keep visiting to a minimum that day, but we just couldn't say no to some family members who were only briefly in town (one of whom made a six-hour pilgrimage from southern Ontario the day before!!), nor could we sensibly keep Max from meeting his local grandmother. It was wonderful to get to see the smiles on the faces of close family, welcoming the first member of the new generation!

Many more visits with friends and family have followed - we are indebted to all of our visitors for bringing food, doing a load of dishes, taking Max off our hands briefly (like we could let him go for long!!! Sigh...), fixing our &*$@ fence and just providing some good adult conversation and missives from the outside world. Not that we haven't gone out - Max dazzled at a family birthday dinner this past weekend and has been to two medical appointments. Little dude LOVES the car seat (thanks CB squared!!), although going-out duds seem to overheat him a little bit. Is exhibitionism genetic?

One of the most wonderful things about this past week has been the postpartum care provided by both our midwives and our doula. After all three women partied with us (i.e. helped Holly deliver Max) all night long, the midwives stopped by for home visits later on on day 1, as well as on days 3 and 5. Not only did they take the time that Max was in good shape, but they also made sure that Holly was recuperating well. On days 2 and 4, our doula came by to make sure that the breastfeeding was going smoothly and to answer any other questions that we had. She also provided us a photocopy of her written notes from the birth, which was really special to me. While Holly obviously had other things on her mind at the time, I constantly found myself trying to store everything that was happening on the 8th to put it down in words later. Obviously, this is a little hard to do while trying to be a supportive birth partner so I wasn't surprised to find that I had misremembered things and event sequences after going over the notes. Like that part about there being no hot water just as Holly was going to hop in the tub - CRAZY!

Sleep was a little rough in the early goings. Max seemed to have difficulty sleeping without physical contact with one of us. I wasn't too keen on sleeping right up next to him in bed, so for the first eight days or so, one of us was up with Max while the other one caught up on sleep. Holly would feed Max while I slept and then I would wake up and lull him back to sleep while Holly would grab a few winks...at least Max would get the sleep he needed, but it kind of took its toll on us, particularly because the whole dance would go from 10 pm to 10 am and we'd have something like 4-5 hours of sleep apiece to show for it. Two days ago, we started putting him in a bassinet when he falls into a deep post-feeding sleep around midnight. He seems good for about 3 hours or so of sleep in between feedings throughout the night so now we're getting more sleep in less total hours. Yay!

Almost, but not quite, lost in all of this was Holly's 31st birthday today. It was a nice low-key day spent with family, friends and half of Ottawa's florists. Her first birthday as a mother; kind of gets you right here . Here's to a year full of adventures with our little one!