He made a stubborn entrance into the world. I hope this doesn't portend future behavior. It was 42 hours between the time we checked in and us forcing his hand to make him come out. I plan to hold that against him in the future.
The first couple days were really rough because I was stuck in an uncomfortable hospital bed not really able to walk, and Pip was stuck on a more uncomfortable hospital chair. Moriarty didn't cry a ton, and actually slept 5.5 hours at a stretch before we realized we should wake him up to feed him. Oops. Parenting mistake #1 of uncountable infinity. Pam and Kent were in and out to help, helping me get some much needed sleep. The nurses also did a ton of work.
Things got more fun when we took him home. For the first few weeks Pip and I planned to sleep in shifts. Our sleep schedules are normally pretty different, but we planned for 1 parent to be up all the time so the other could get restful sleep. This worked great! I'm actually healing and making up some sleep debt! It also means I get some quiet time with just Moriarty, and some as a family. We've been working out lots of hacks and simplifications so we can fix bottles with lightning speed and whatnot. At the moment we've been feeding him whenever he's hungry and stopping when he seems full. That is about every half hour to hour. That's a lot of short sessions.
OK, on to the baby milestones. The first couple days he reacted loudly to being cold. Now he doesn't mind not having on clothes for a few minutes. He makes a lot of accidental smiles. Face twitches and shapes that are smiles to us, but not in control for him. They still make me giggle. He also makes the Blue Steel face from Zoolander with the big eyes and rounded mouth. I'm trying to get a picture but it's elusive.
We've taken a couple family naps. We got a co-sleeper that sits in our bed and that lets us touch him if he's stirring to comfort him, and have him nearby. When he's bigger we'll move him out of the bed for now this is great. We also took our first family walk around the neighborhood. Pip put him our Ergo carrier and we walked a few blocks and looked at the flowering plums just starting to bloom. We'll take him to the cherry trees when they explode in a few weeks!
Overall I think he's a great baby. He seems to mostly cry when something's wrong. It's gas, or he's wet, or hungry. Occasionally because he's restless and wants to be held, but then he calms quickly. This could change at any time, but for now it's awesome.
We had our first doctor's visit. He's right on track for weight and growth. He reacted well to the visual stimulation and range of motion testing. The doctor did suggest we start feeding him a little more and extending the time between feedings to more like 3 hours. I had my first parental emotional meltdown (mostly on the inside) at the thought of my baby being sad and crying because he was hungry. But Pip is the rational parent and had suggestions for how to work up to it, not make our baby suffer, and help him progress. I know it'll be important for him to have skills like these for our sanity and for starting daycare in 6-8 weeks, but I have a lot of new mom hormones and NO ONE hurts my baby! We successfully made it 2 hours tonight. Pip and Moriarty are still napping (I woke up) and at the 2.5 hour mark. We'll get this! This is an opportunity for growth, and I never shy away from those. :-)