Penny

Penny is now one week old. Happy birthday, Penny!

And congratulations to Matt and I - we have raised our child to the ripe age of one week without having made a single fatal mistake! (Though as Matt pointed out, about half that week was under the supervision of trained medical staff at the hospital.)

In celebration: A few of my thoughts on the first week of life.

- I have now gone two whole days without having one of those baby-blues crying jags. Which is not to say I haven't gotten choked up, but I'm sure Matt appreciates not having to comfort two girls who are crying for no apparent reason.

- Babies are not dumb. They're just starting at such a low level of knowledge that it's hard not to make assumptions. For instance, most people assume that a baby will wake up and cry when it gets hungry. This may be true for older, more experienced babies, but a newborn - who got food constantly and consistently from the placenta - doesn't know what being hungry is. If you let a newborn sleep too long, they will get so hungry that they feel actual pain, and then they will be too hysterically upset to eat (because they don't know that eating will make the pain go away). Why wasn't that in any of my books?

- Breastfeeding is not the innate and natural thing that people think it should be. Also, the classic cradle hold that one sees in pictures does not work for newborns. I'll be glad when Penny has a little more control over her own neck and I can use the position; for now, I have to lay her on a pillow on my lap.

- Matt and I have ceased to have names, when we're talking to each other. For that matter, we have in large part ceased to have a first or second person. It's now, "What would Mommy like for lunch?" and "What movie would Daddy like to watch tonight?"

- I got on the scale this morning and nearly fell off it again. To heck with recovering my pre-pregnancy weight. I only gained about fifteen pounds while I was pregnant; I'd expected to lose that pretty quickly. But I'm already down to five below my pre-pregnancy weight. They say breastfeeding helps you to lose weight, because so much fat goes into the milk. But I'm inclined to believe that it's also because we barely have time for regular meals, much less snacking; and thanks to sleep deprivation, I'm not especially hungry even when we can squeeze in those meals. Of course, in another few days all those wonderful and healthy meals my mom made for us in advance will run out, and Matt and I will have to contemplate cooking for ourselves again. We'll see if my weight continues to drop once I'm on a diet of pizza, takeout, and whatever happened to be closest to the front of the fridge.

- I'm sure all the other parents out there will grin knowingly at this one. Yesterday, I went to the hospital's breastfeeding support group with questions of how to wake Penny up enough to feed her (without making her screamingly angry) and keep her awake long enough to get a decent amount of milk. When I came home, armed with ideas, she switched tactics on me - now she wants to nurse every hour. Or, ideally, just as I've finished using my pump and am drained dry. Obviously, it's time for new tactics.

- Does anyone out there have any idea how to tell a) whether she's mouthing because she's hungry, or just wants to comfort-suck, and b) why the heck she won't use a pacifier when she's not hungry?