& three weeks in

It’s been a while. Did you miss me? Karli’s been telling me I need to update the blog because if I don’t, people will stop reading. This is why I like her—she actually thinks people read my blog.

Spoiler alert: The first few weeks have mostly been variations of this.

Today, Squatch is three weeks old. It’s been quite the adventure so far. It is umpteen times more difficult than I could have imagined, but also exponentially more awesome. Much of this is due to the fact that he’s the coolest baby ever*. But some is also because of how hard it is and the fact that we appear to be succeeding so far—as shown by it being three weeks in and he’s still alive and without lasting physical or psychological damage. We think.

*Don’t argue that point. It’s established fact. Also fact: he’s the cutest baby ever.

So far in his three weeks, though, he hasn’t done anything too exciting. We got to go to the doctor a few times, but the highlights for him would probably be the visitors. He entertained guests in his hospital suite and here at our shitty apartment, and has done so in a manner that Emily Post would be proud of.

Visual proof that he’s safe and in one piece.

One thing I’m glad we did was ask out-of-town guests (meaning family) to wait at least a week before coming down to visit. It’s not that we aren’t dying for Squatch to meet all his family, but that week buffer was mostly for us. We needed time to establish a routine, get comfortable with a new baby in the house, and most importantly, to screw up. Because, in those first few days, boy did we ever screw up. And the last thing we needed was an audience to witness those screw-ups.

Like the time we were changing his diaper and he started to crap on the changing pad, and as we were trying to clean him up for that, we managed to get him to pee on his own face. Or like the time the dog snatched away a piece of bread that had managed to fall on his head and stop our hearts for about 15 seconds. Or any other number of meltdowns and freak-outs that happened in those first few days home*. We didn’t need people watching those.

*I’m not going to say who’s responsible for these screw-ups, but his name rhymes with Swatch’s Schmaddy.

Squatch hanging with Wumpy. (Stolen from my mother-in-law’s Facebook page.)

After the week moratorium, however, Squatch got to meet Karli’s parents—Wumpy and Nana. That’s what we’ve decided they’ll be called, and putting it out on the internet makes it official. No going back now. Having them here allowed us to hand him off for a few minutes* and get some help packing up a few things, and they were excited to see their first grandkid.

*A slight underexaggeration. I’m pretty sure that one of them was holding the kid practically every second they were awake and Squatch wasn’t attached to a boob. Not that they seemed to mind at all.

A few more visitors are in store before Squatch’s first big adventure—moving day. I’ll make sure to keep you apprised of how that whole mess goes down, too, especially now that we’ve made it through the first few weeks. I think I’ll be able to keep up on the blog a little better now. People keep telling us the first few weeks are the hardest and it gets better. Of course, they could just be trying to be nice.