Pooh on your Father

Gavin is three weeks old today. Three weeks sounds like a short time. Until you realize that three weeks is a long time to be awake. Before Gavin arrived, I tried to prepare as best I could - I read books, we decorated the nursery, I talked to moms about what it was like. I figured it would be more amazing and more difficult than anyone can imagine pre-baby (a bit like marriage, in fact). I was right. It is, indeed, more exquisite and more painful than I could anticipate.

Yet, even amongst the zombie-like exhaustion that's set in and the emotional turmoil brought on by Gavin's slow weight gain, we've had a lot of moments of laughter. Those are the moments that I want to capture here. Months or years from now, the sleep deprivation will be something we shrug our shoulders over and (hopefully) remember as just one more hurdle in this race of ours. Heck, the vividness of 21 hours in labor is already fading, so I assume these weeks of bleary-eyed exhaustion will too. What I hope stands out in our memories are the moments that things went wrong, but we were able to laugh anyway. So, here's one of the highlights:

When Gavin was only about a week old, Jesse was holding him and feeding him. Because Gavin usually falls asleep during his feedings, we were told by the pediatrician to try a variety of strategies to keep him awake - tickle his feet, rub his hands, feed him unclothed. Jess had Gavin on his lap with Gavin wearing only a diaper. A diaper that, it turned out, is a bit big for him. This fact was discovered quite dramatically when Jesse let out a wail and exclaimed, "He pooped on me!" Indeed, Gavin had "blown out his britches" as my mom says, covering Jesse in baby poop. Here's a photo to help you imagine the scene. We (my parents and I - I'm not sure Jesse's ready to laugh about it yet) had a great time laughing over that one. It brought a whole new meaning to the card game our family enjoys playing whenever we're all together: Pooh on Your Neighbor!