Three Weeks

First Moments
Originally uploaded by Jason Hutchens.

Today Lucy (our doula) sent us a CD containing the pictures she took during the birth, so I've uploaded a few of them to Flickr. Don't worry, they're tastfully cropped to omit all the gross bits.

In other news, Dzung's folks are now staying with us, and helping (as grandparents do) by cooking food for us, sleeping soundly while we stay up all night caring for Eliza, and telling us what we should be doing differently the next morning.

Apart from that, Eliza has started to settle down more during the night, and less during the day (instead of the other way around). Last night she slept soundly from 3:30am to 7:30am, which may sound painful to all those non-parents out there, but which was a minor victory for us. I felt more rested the next day than I have for weeks.

Part of this victory has been the establishment of a routine. We haven't been so strict in terms of feed times, bath times and bed time, but we have delineated night and day by playing loud "pink noise" on the iMac during the night, and turning off the lights. Eliza has adapted to this by allowing herself to be put down in the bassinet with nary a protest squeel, and going from bug-eyed wide awakeness to sound asleep in moments. Nice. Pink noise, in case you don't know, is an easier-to-listen-to varient of white noise. It sounds just like mother's womb, I'd bet.

I'd also like to make the observation that, should human evolution continue, I believe that milk will come out of your little finger. Perfect for popping into baby's mouth while you're holding her to calm her during a screaming session. We've been loathe to do this too often, as a proferred digit is tantamount to a dummy in my books, and we've succesfully avoided using the latter to date.

Oh, and really, truly final news: the early childhood clinin lady visited on Thursday, and pronounced Eliza perfectly healthy. She's bulked up to 2.66kg, meaning that after losing 200gm over the first few days after birth, she's put on a massing 340gm, which is above what you'd expect. That's my girl!