Bathing baby

Alyssa is only a week old, and she has already experienced several "firsts". Her first day (and night) home, her first car ride, her first doctor's visit, a few firsts that I won't relate here (to spare her future dignity), and her first bath(s). Actually, I believe bathing might rank up there as one of her favorite pastimes (after eating and sleeping, in that order). Too bad diaper changing isn't this easy...

Alyssa’s hospital gifts

I'm not going to lie, this post isn't going to be spectacular (as usual). For one thing, I'm pretty sure my eyes are only staying open due to sheer willpower. The other (more important) reason is that my current stockpile of baby photos isn't huge by any means, so I'm trying to ration them out slowly.

Finishing off my batch of hospital pictures that aren't R-rated, here are the gifts that Alyssa received during our incarceration ... er, spontaneous vacation:

photos

News from the homefront

Finally, a chance to jump on here and report some news (I'm going to blame exhaustion for the delay).

Alyssa, Jennie, and I were discharged from the hospital yesterday around noon. We were dreading the car ride, but it turns out even babies don't mind cruising down the highway (in other words, she slept the whole way). She was a little bit more cranky once we got home, but overall Alyssa seems to be a very easy-to-please baby ... so far.

Since I could probably turn this post into a novel, I think I'll spread this stuff out by posting in themes for the next couple of weeks.

It’s a Girl!

Alyssa Paige Harke was brought into the world at 1:33PM on May 24th, weighing 8 lbs. 1 ounce and measuring 20 inches in length.

I don't have much time to post at the moment (I'm on my way back to the hospital). I apologize, most of the photos were taken in the delivery room and aren't public safe.I promise some will be posted soon.

Baby Countdown: T-minus 7 days!

If the doctors are correct in their calculations, the baby's gender (and name) will finally be revealed around this time next weekend.  Of course, such estimations are far from an exact science -- the baby could decide it wants out tonight.  Anyone want to place bets?

On a completely unrelated topic, Jennie and I recently created our MySpace profile pages.  While we still intend to focus primarily on sharing our baby news on this blog, it couldn't hurt to try and take advantage of MySpace's popularity to lead family and friends here.

If you have a MySpace account, add Jennie and Michael to your friends list and we'll accept as soon as possible.  If you haven't signed up with MySpace, well ... think about doing so.

Congrats to Jeff and Mothers everywhere!

This weekend was big for not one, not two, but three reasons. Heh, okay ... maybe just two after all -- the baby decided to take a rain check on being born this weekend. Probably out of spite. *shrug*

Anyway, first shout-out goes to my brother Jeff for graduating from N.C. State on Saturday. The exciting world of paper and pulp (and probably the smell, too) awaits him near the end of the summer in "Twice as Nice!" Texarkana, Arkansas. I guess that slogan also describes the photos of "the bros"

... or not. I don't know why John and I are making exactly the same face.

Moving on. On Sunday, we celebrated Mothers' Day by taking the moms (and mom-to-be) out to Kanki at Crabtree Valley Mall. The chef was entertaining, in a "I don't know what the heck she just said" sort of way. The food was a hit, too.

So, there we have it: Happy Mothers' Day moms, and congrats for graduating Jeff!

OH MY GOSH!!!

Long before I found out that I was pregnant, I decided to try to take "friendly advice" with a grain of salt. I fully expected to get lots of comments and advice, but I had no idea how many people would have thoughts to share.

So far, I have gained less than 30 pounds through the whole pregnancy. I have had some trouble with swelling ankles, but I am told it is normal. I am mostly carrying straight out in front and still have some people tell me that they can't tell I am pregnant from behind.

So imagine my amusement today at the grocery store when the cashier shrieked "Oh, my gosh! You look like you are about to drop that baby right now! Please don't do it here because I was in the hospital when my cousin had her baby and it was so disgusting that I don't ever want to have a baby myself!"

Mike and I looked at each other and laughed because I have had similar (but slightly less graphic) comments since I started to show! "Oh, my Lord, you're HUGE!!!" or "Girl, you're not even going to make it to your due date, so you might as well put that in your pipe and smoke it!" or the ever popular "You look like you're ready to pop at any second!" I have felt pretty good right along, so I generally just laugh it off. But what if I was a bit self-conscious? Nothing like a few "wide-load" comments to put a hormonally-challenged pregnant woman into a regular sob fest!

I thanked the cashier for the joke and for putting thoughts of a gory delivery into my husband's head, helped the woman behind us pick her jaw up off the floor after she caught sight of my stomach (so that she could make another colorful comment about how I'll never make it another 3 weeks), and laughed all the way to the car. Mike thought we should stop by on the cashier's next shift to deliver the baby right on her conveyor belt.

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What I learned at baby school

I had meant to comment on the baby delivery classes a week ago (while it was still fresh in my mind), so you'll have to forgive me if this post seems a little ... unfocused. Anyway, speaking only for myself (I'm sure Jennie absorbed more than I did), here is what I learned at baby school:

• Baby school is long. Really long. 9 hours of unpaid work. I'm still looking for confirmation of my credit hours in the mail


• The videos aren't as scary as you may have imagined. The forceps that may have to be used during the actual delivery, on the other hand ...


• However, the videos apparently used to be as scary as you may have imagined. According to our instructor, a now-retired video (thankfully) on C-sections once caused a guy to jump out of his seat and lose his balance on his way out into the hall to vomit, ending in a coma (and probably a lifetime of heckling)


• Yep, the other fathers-to-be looked uncomfortable to be there. You would be too, having to learn more about female anatomy in 10 minutes than you've probably heard in your entire life


• Babies don't really care about what we learned regarding child delivery. Lucky them


• I can never look at an exercise ball the same again. If you have to ask why, consider yourself fortunate


• The biggest surprise for me was just how much a baby can fill his/her first diaper. I'll probably be scarred for life once I can visually confirm this

The most important thing I learned from the two classes, however, is that I'll probably end up acting like the mushy, crying fathers shown holding their newly-delivered babies for the first time ... and I won't mind.