What We’ve Learned: Week 2
Another week with Henry, and it’s gone really, really fast. Tomorrow morning I head off to work for the first time since he was born, and I don’t know how well that’s going to go. There may be tears. (I’ve actually considered starting to buy lottery tickets just so I can have that infinitesimal chance of winning a couple of million so I can quit my job and stay home with him all the time. Ah, to dream.)
So, what new things have we learned about Henry these past seven days.
We learned that the umbilical cord drops off at 14 days, 6 hours, and 32 minutes after I cut it. (Give or take a few minutes.)
We’ve learned that when he’s deep asleep, he’s as floppy as a well-cooked spaghetti noodle. (In fact, it reminds me of pro wrestling. When I was around ten years old, I watched wrestling every Saturday morning. One of the stars — and he’s still popular to this day — was Hulk Hogan. Every match, it seemed that someone would get him in a headlock, nearly paralyzing him. The referee would come over and pick up Hogan’s arm, and it would drop, lifeless, to the mat. He’d do it again, and again, it fell. He did it a third time, but then it wouldn’t fall. In fact, Hogan had regained his strength and quickly got out of the choke hold and overpowered his opponent. I’m still waiting for Henry to overpower me.)
We learned that sometimes it’s best to not wait and change his diaper when you hear him pooping because it may just end up on your pants.
We learned that every three days, there will be a day of fussiness, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
We learned that we have very generous friends and family. Our friends Tara, Meghan, Jenny/Rob, and Barb all brought over tasty food that allowed us to spend more time changing diapers and less time cooking. And our neighbor Lilian and my mother both gave us very cute knitted hats and jackets (which will certainly be involved in numerous photo shoots in the coming months).
We learned that clipping tiny fingernails (thereby making sure Henry doesn’t claw his eyes out) isn’t as difficult as we thought.
We learned that when hunger comes upon him with such ferocity that he gets himself worked up and he turns into, what Kristen calls, the angry snapping turtle.
And we learned that as much as we think we know about Henry, it all will change tomorrow. And that’s okay.
