– 3:24 pm
The midwife we were expecting showed up while I was at my physio appointment at Nuffield. Your mother texted me the update. “All good, nothing to worry about”. Fantastic! Even better, she removed the stitches to her C-section as planned with no issues.
On the flip side, it sounds like the other ladies from our NCT class are having a lot of trouble with their little ones. I hear Helen who had OC is struggling to breastfeed, Beatles chic said her one screams her lungs out the minute they step out of the house, so much so that they have to u-turn… And on and on. I hope it gets better for them.
Meanwhile, we took you out for a walk yesterday. It was a pleasant stroll after you realised we weren’t paying any attention to your crocodile tears. So a few minutes into the 40 min walk, you practically slept through the rest of it, in your preferred banzai position. Even when I expected you to whinge on some of the bumps on the pavement, you only made a face and moved on. Nothing more than a brief grimace. You’re also breastfeeding just fine now, albeit after several attempts (and great guidance from Lucy at Portland Hospital). In all, you are a great kid. Super chilled. Long may it continue.
I’ve also caught you smiling a couple of times now. What a great thing to witness as a father for the first time. It gave me so much joy. I was telling Liza about it when she said she’d seen you do it as well but just forgot to tell me. When you get a chance, we’d like to know what you’re dreaming, overhearing and laughing about. This house is constantly shaking with laughter though. That must be said. It’s how we live. The midwife said you are more responsive than other babies your age. I think it’s all related.
You don’t like being left alone though. But that’s perfectly understandable. Apparently, this phase is called the fourth trimester. So we’re doing a lot of skin-to-skin and swaddling you lots. You’re currently out cold laying on the floor in a swaddle. I think it makes you feel safe and less exposed. I don’t know if that makes sense. Hopefully, it does.
Your mother’s on the phone with the health insurance company trying to reclaim the expense on some of your medical bills. We’ve also been trading emails with the hospital to get your tongue-tie addressed and it’s booked for Thursday. It sounds very much like a routine 5 min procedure.
The postman delivered an Artipoppe baby carrier this morning. I didn’t know Liza had ordered it. I like the packaging a lot. It tells me everything I need to know about the brand.
Ah! One more thing. You now have an email address. I just created one. It’s mrlianateh@gmail.com. Unexpectedly, ‘lianateh‘ was taken. Now that was a surprise. We simply assumed it was a peculiar combination of names no one else would have. But we assumed wrong, clearly. I tried several permutations and combinations but nothing else quite rolled off the tongue smoothly enough. Your mother tells me that ‘Lian’ is a Chinese unisex name which means ‘white lotus’. I didn’t know that either. But which other Lian has the name ‘ateh’!? Whoever they are, I don’t like them.
As I was going through the exercise routine with my physio, I pointed out there was a crossover between her recommended ones and some of my yoga poses. She could see from my notes – it was her first time with me as she was only providing cover – that I was expecting a child. So we talked about you for a bit. I say all that to say, she spoke highly of a yoga book for babies by Fearne Cotton. It’s now on my watchlist. Maybe when you’re older.
