Ten Days
Started: 2009-04-05 20:34:18
Submitted: 2009-04-05 20:50:31
Visibility: World-readable
Calvin is ten days old, and I head back to work tomorrow.
After bringing Calvin home last Sunday, the week was a bit of a blur. Breastfeeding has been more than a small hassle; Kiesa has been pumping and we've been bottle-feeding and supplementing; we're trying to get him back to feeding directly but that might take a couple of weeks, since his technique is a bit wrong. I've been reading to him; I'm reading a chapter of The Graveyard Book every night, even though it's a bit above his reading level. (Through two months old, Baby Read-Aloud Basics tells me all he's really getting is the sound of my voice and the idea of being read to. I'm also including board books and Dr. Seuss.) I'm hoping I'll get practice now so I'll have better technique once it matters; at least, I hope I'm not going to burn myself out now before reading really matters.
We drove down to Denver International Airport this afternoon to pick up Kiesa's mother, who will be here for almost two weeks to give Kiesa backup while I go back to work. I think I've mostly gotten the hang of my current chart of baby-care tasks. I know what brand of pacifiers Calvin likes (our principled anti-nipple-confusion stand against pacifiers lasted forty-eight hours until we discovered that Calvin is much happier sucking one) and how to change his diaper. The last ten days feel a bit like a strange extended vacation with an alarm waking me up every three hours; I almost expect everything to go back to normal tomorrow when I return to work. I'm now interested in seeing how my new role as a dad fits with my old role as an engineer. (I'm not really looking forward to filling out all the paperwork to add Calvin to my health insurance, but someone has to do it.)
