Two weeks

I've never really been a morning person, as those around me would attest. From the early years in school right through National Service to the laid-back-while-hectic days of university education, I've always been a 'late' person. The late mister varf. Ha ha ha.

The last two weeks with Ethan has changed all of that.

Not only have I been getting up early to start the day, I've also lost track of where all the time has gone. Between feeds and nappy changes, J and I have been struggling to wash and sterilize bottles, shore up on babyware stocks which we naively thought we had plenty excess of, and maybe shovel some food down while we're at it.

I couldn't even find spare time to process and upload his delivery photos until five days after - hence the delay on the last entry announcing his arrival. Thankfully things have calmed down a bit, to the point where I actually have time to sit down and select photos for upload.

As I key this entry in on the iBook, Ethan is sleeping quietly next to me on the bed, occasionally flailing his arms in an agitated manner - possibly to ward off some monster in a bad dream - before settling back down into a peaceful slumber. If only it was always so easy.

The first two nights were the most trying. Not getting enough sustenance from the precious few drops of colostrum with each suckle, Ethan's agitation was apparent, much to our dismay and rising frustration (and sleep deprevation). We had to resort to feeding him with glucose water and bottled formula milk just to tide things over. Much to our relief, J's breast milk came in on the third day, washing away much of our breastmilk-or-formula anxiety.

On the fourth day, the pediatrician diagnosed him with jaundice, and recommended re-admitting Ethan to the nursery for photo-treatment under the UV light for two days. J was heartbroken. For two mind-numbingly exhausting days I drove J back and forth between home and hospital, alternating between nursing him in one of the rooms in the ward and delivering bottled expressed breast milk to be fed to him by the nurses. He was discharged two days later, on Sunday.

The next day I had to go back to work for a whole week. Which finally brings me back to the mornings thing - I decided to shift my schedule to start work earlier each day, in order to get home early enough to interact with my son while he'd still be alert and aware.

I guess it helps that the irregular feeding hours in the wee mornings have kicked my sleep cycle out of whack. Having to shoot straight out of deep slumber to change a badly soiled nappy on a wailing and twisting four-ish kilogram dynamo does that kind of thing to your system. I've not shot a sunrise photo (that I can remember) before the one I've put at the top of this entry; the photo was taken early yesterday morning.

Going by some of the surprises in these first two weeks, the next couple of months will probably prove to be interesting at the very least, if not frantic and downright exhausting. But for now, I'm just enjoying the momentary lull in activity - and that contented look on his cherubic face, still happily sound asleep.