The New Obsession

Everytime I'm on the internet, I have to check on the progress of my photos at DPChallenge, and see who's commented on my photos, and how my score is doing. My first entry scored 88th place out of 245, and my second photo scored even better, 53 our of 223. It's pretty silly, because it's voted by anyone who's registered, and in the end nobody really wins anything even if you got first price, but it's fun to submit to their challenges. Last week's theme was "Hope", and I submitted a photo similar to the one of Fifth Eye - and so far I've gotten really positive comments on it, even though my score still seems to be on the lower side. I think it's a really good photo of Zoe. This week's "Framing" challenge has got me stumped, but I do have a backup photo of Alex I can use if all else fails.

Zoe's doing better - the weird little dried up umbilical cord thingy finally fell off today - and if you're unfamiliar with newborns, they have a little excess cord that hangs out and falls off eventually, and you're not supposed to do anything to it, but just wait for it to fall off. But it looks pretty nasty toward the end, a little crispy and black, just hanging out of her tummy. So, with the detachment of that dead material, we finally got to give her a bath for the first time since she was born over a week ago. It went okay, I think it kinda wore her out though.

On a wronger note, we've noticed that Zoe started out pretty dark skinned - so much so that when the hospital photographer came in to take a hospital photo, she asked my wife if she was Spanish. And after that, it just got stuff in my head that she looked like a Hispanic girl. It's silly really, she's pretty Asian, but she's so much darker than Alex. Hmm. On a lighter note (ahhhh! Pun!!!), Alex's hair is getting lighter, though it still appears black most of the time.

We, the parents are handling it day by day. I'm wrangling with a little bit of depression and my wife is still dealing with her moodiness and tendency to cry. I've had a constant headache for a few days now, and my wife and I are kinda on edge. We just keep reminding ourselves that the first few months with a baby is hell - it was the toughest period of our marriage when Alex was in his first few months - but eventually he gets settled into a routine and things are well again. It will be a few months before Zoe gets into a routine, so we're just handling it day by day. Try not to let fatigue talk for us.

Watching "The Pianist" this morning didn't really help brighten my mood either.

I photo I took for a competition.

Hee hee!

I spent 99 % of the time doing this!

Enjoying the ride.

I woke up Zoe at 1am to feed her, because feedings have to be regular for little newborns. So I fed her, all the time worrying about her spitting up, because she's already spat up three times today, a couple of them pretty major ones. I held her for a while, changed her weird yellow diaper, and held her some more, waiting for her to doze off. She was looking around the room, then she looked at me. I smiled at her and said something to her, and for a quick second, she smiled at me and made me fall in love with her.

Feeling sorry for myself? Haven't had the time...

Yes, I know. Many of you would say, "Why would you have to feel sorry for yourself? You have two beautiful children, and a wonderful wife, and the most fertile sperm in the world! What's your issue?"

And yes, I have all those, and I'm grateful for everyday I get to spend with my family. It's been extremely busy in the past few days - being constantly surrounded by poopy diapers, bottles that need to be boiled and washed and made up with formula, and crying. Lots of crying. Normal crying for each baby, mind you, but sometimes, it's in stereo. Surround sound, rattle your head type of stereo.

I interrupt this entry now for something really funny. My wife needed to get some laundry out of Alex's room - he's taking his normal afternoon nap now, and she had to sneak in his room to get the clothes. She told me that she had to get on her hands and knees and move slowly and quietly, so she wouldn't wake him up. It's like Mission Impossible, to sneak pass the sleeping baby undetected. You have to be a parent to understand that you don't wake sleeping babies, or there's hell to pay.

Anyway, my mom was up the last few days, helping us out with baby watch and cooking for us, which is always a good thing, and that's been slightly helpful. She also did a few things that were counterproductive, like rearranging my room and doing strange things with my kitchen, but the tradeoff is worth it. My wife's headaches from the spinal thingy has gotten better; now she just gets normal headaches.

To all new parents out there, "What to Expect When You're Expecting" is a very good book to get. It's our freakin' bible around here. Zoe's jaundice is still worrisome for us, and we were wondering if she was sleep too much because of it, but the book said that it was normal for newborns to be awake only 3 minutes out of every hour. That really consoled my wife, who is still very worried for Zoe. We forgot how fragile and delicate newborns were the first few months of their life. It seems like everything is out to get them, and nothing is safe. With Zoe, we worry about her general health, and her low immune system, about SIDS, about colds and flus and bugs and having enough to eat, or having too much to eat, pooping enough, peeing enough - basically we want to make sure all her basic bodily functions perform as they should.

With Alex, it's a little different. We worry about him less, and it's a different set of worries. We worry about him eating things, because anything that fits in his mouth is fair game; we worry about him choking, because he likes to stuff handfuls of food in his mouth, even if we just performed The Heimlich Maneuver on him; and we worry about him not getting enough attention, now that he has a baby sister.

So life here is busy, right now there's two sleeping babies, so I can blog, do some chores, and change into my day clothes. I'm still in my jammies and it's 1:25 in the afternoon!

Alex did the cutest thing tonight. We were watching a movie on DVD, and everytime a song came on, he'd put one hand behind his head, hold on to the cat scratching post with the other, and thrust his pelvis.

I swear I didn't teach him that.