Almost two weeks in

My Babykins (aka Butterbean, aka Toby) is almost two weeks old and he is proof to the truism that the second baby is easier. He is SO much easier than Zeke was. Honestly, I wish we could just start with the second baby. No colic, no apparent dairy intolerance, no nursing issues, no repeated trips to the pediatrician to check weight. Whew.

Of course, we are much more qualified as parents than we were before having BTDT. Before Zeke, I had never changed a little boy's diaper. A few thousand diaper changes later, we are a little more experienced. We're also a little more casual and less likely to startle. For example, I decided a long time ago that I wasn't going to chart Toby's first few weeks by feed times, diaper changes and sleep schedules per the demand of doctors. I think I still have in Zeke's things, some notebook paper showing when he nursed from which breast, for how long and what his diaper was like after. Blegh. That made me crazy. It helped also that Toby was born at home. I just heard about a local hospital that won't let jaundiced babies be released home until their bilirubin count is under 9. (A high or dangerous count is 20, I believe.) Toby did have some jaundice which the pediatrician tested at 15 at its highest. It wasn't serious and continued to decrease everyday and just was something that we could monitor at home, but apparently not all hospitals would have allowed us to do that. It also helped, I think, that I did not have another c-section. While I do not regret having that surgery one bit, I do think it posed a lot of complications for Zeke in those first days and did make that transition to motherhood more of a challenge for me. I really do not remember a lot of those early days of Zeke's life, because I just felt so tired and overwhelmed and ill-equipped. For the record, Aaron has better and more memories of Zeke's newborn days, but again that may have to do with the surgery. This is not any reflection of Zeke, though, or my love for him -- he was and still is too much sweetness to resist and to not love absolutely. It's not his fault that he was the first baby!

I'm glad we decided to have a second baby, though, if only so I can have the chance to appreciate those first few newborn days that I may have missed or forgotten with Zeke. Really, it is wonderful. Babykins is a snuggly little thing who loves to sleep on your chest and make little animal sounds. His fuzzy head begs that you just rub your cheek across that head. He also inspires the best reactions from others. For example, Zeke loves to say in a sing-song voice, "I see your little toes! I see your little toes!" Oh, too much sweetness.

• I forgot how a newborn cry can sound like "La - la - la - la" albeit a little high pitched and panicked sounding.
• Zeke seems to be adjusting really well. He is always concerned for Toby and thinking about him. Tonight he gave me one of his blankets to give to Toby, he spends time thinking about what toys Toby should have, and he LOVES to tell other people that Toby is his baby. Not his baby brother, but his baby. We did have one instance where he wasn't that gentle touching Toby and where he wanted to touch Toby's eye, but that was pretty short lived. Like me, he likes touching Toby's head and giving him kisses. Zeke seems relatively casual about the attention that Toby gets and about the amount of time that I have been giving him. He does seem to occasionally be testing his caregivers, but that seems easily attributable to the fact that he is four and a four year old whose routines have been interrupted pretty often of late. He did try to force me to nurse one of his teddy bears once when I was nursing Toby, but I found a mama teddy bear to help with that request.
• I am trying to remember to take it easy and have sworn off vacuuming, laundry and cooking that doesn't involve microwaving something from the freezer. I do feel a lot better recovering from a natural birth than recovering from c-section, but it was not an altogether simple thing to give birth to such a large baby and I am trying not to overdo it. I have to remember that I am recovering. It is frustrating in some ways and I feel that I must be overwhelming Aaron who has taken on so much responsibility in caring for Zeke and for the house, both now and in the few weeks before Toby was born. I've also been following the advice that I was given when Zeke was born and completely ignored -- sleep when the baby sleeps. I've sent Zeke to school everyday this week (he normally goes three times a week) and while he is gone, my routine is to eat breakfast, check email and then take a nap with Toby. The house is buried under piles of laundry and drifts of pet fur, but -- darnnit -- I'm having a good time bonding with Babykins, counting his toes, nuzzling his fuzzy head and whatnot. That's a pretty big commitment of time right there.
• Aaron went back to work this week for a few days so I had my chance to get Zeke ready for school and then everyone out the door and to school by myself. Needless to say, I think I can reliably say that Zeke will not be on time for school for the rest of the school year. All three weeks of it.
• When babies are born premature, for a time you can subtract the number of weeks premature they were from their actual age to estimate their appropriate developmental age. I wonder if there might not be something equivalent to determine the developmental age of a baby born after their due date. (Toby was born at 41 weeks and 2 days according the due date I believe in. He was past 42 weeks, if you were to believe the doctors' estimated due dates.) Anyway, Toby is such a big strong baby and I find myself in wonder of him. Less than two weeks old and he is already holding his head up for good periods of time. An acquaintance who had babies that were large and postdate tells me that her babies hit developmental milestones in the first few months faster than she expected.
• When Toby was first born, we think he had a very strong resemblance to Zeke as a newborn. However, now he is starting to look a little more himself. We think that it might be that Toby will look more like Aaron at first and have lighter hair, eye and skin coloring than Zeke. I'm curious to see how it turns out. Oh, and no Mongolian spots (ie "blue butt") on Toby, while Zeke still has his.

Pictures to follow soon.