Baby-Ao has eyelashes now! It’s good to know that my milk is being put to good use in growing thing (hopefully his brain too!!) and not just being regurgitated all over himself, myself, the pillow, bed etc.

Soon, he’ll have longer lashes than me, which is so unfair, since as a boy, he doesn’t need to bat his eyelashes. Whereas a girl could never have long enough eyelashes.

Today is Day 14, per the UK midwives, who consider the date of birth as Day 0, and Day 1 is the first 24 hours. Whereas the Boy and I tend to think of it as Day 15 (15th day of life).

We first noticed Baby-Ao’s first eyelash about a week ago, and now he has sprouted several of them!

The first two weeks have been exhausting. I knew early parenthood was exhausting, but I never realised HOW exhausting it would be. When I think about how I think that a lot of baby products are scammily expensive. I’ve now realised that I would happily drop £1,000 for a product that would definitely help Baby sleep so I can get some rest as well. Unfortunately, there are no miracle products and guarantees, that I know of.

The bad:
–> sore nipples from breastfeeding: in the first week especially, my nipples would shrink in fear every time I even *thought* of feeding him. I really had to steel myself to at least persist for a week, which would be the first day I could attend the weekly (on Wednesdays) “post natal breastfeeding drop-in class / ‘surgery'” at St Mary’s, since Baby-Ao was born on a Wednesday. Baby-Ao wasn’t latching on properly, or maybe my nips were not sufficiently toughened-up…

–> nappies / diapers & the peeing guerilla warfare (Baby-Ao vs. Daddy & Mummy): again, I hadn’t appreciated how many nappies we would be changing. In particular, I hadn’t expected that he could poop & pee in quick succession after we’ve *just* changed his nappy. The Boy compared it to cleaning the Augean stables. This caused us several hours of sleeplessness before we learnt that we need to check his nappy yet again, because he could have pooped or peed yet again. The second part to the nappy-saga, is Baby-Ao’s penchant for peeing whilst we are changing his nappy. Initially, his strategy was projectile peeing — spraying Daddy and the changing mat. As we progressively upped our arsenal of defense to a two-layered changing mat strategy with bathroom rugs on the floor, and two layers of kitchen towel lining the top changing mat AND another covering his little man-bits, Baby-Ao too evolved his tactics to develop more effective counter strategies to pee. His latest is the “silent trickle”, where he would quietly pee as we lift his legs to change his nappy, thereby causing his pee to flow down his entire back! So now the Boy and I are down to a “Time Attack” strategy – trying to get his nappy changed as quickly as possible before Baby-Ao has time to pee.

–> bouts of crying  & fussing at night: Baby-Ao doesn’t like to sleep at night, especially not in his Moses basket. We would go through a nightly ritual of feeding, crying, burping, crying, changing nappy, crying, feeding and round & round in a merry-go-round (more like miserable-go-round) until we finally manage to soothe him to sleep – usually by having him on a pillow next to us in bed, and Daddy holding his hands and popping in pacifier in each time he spits it out, until Baby-Ao gets bored and nods off. Whereas Baby-Ao is happy-ish to sleep in his Moses basket during the day, at night, he would only sleep on a pillow next to us, or tummy down on my chest and belly – talk about unsafe sleeping practices! But we’d get no sleep otherwise.

The ugly:
–> Baby-Ao turns red and almost purple when he cries, arching his back and his mouth and lips trembling like we were torturing him (instead of him torturing us with his often-mysterious crying)

–> milk regurgitation: on me, on himself, on Daddy’s shoulder, on the pillow, bed… everything seems to smell of stale milk

The good:
–> Taking Baby-Ao on a walk to Hyde Park on Day 6 (August 6th) in an Ergo Baby Carrier with infant insert

–> Taking him on a walk to Little Venice on Day 7 (August 7th). We even managed to sit down for a drink at The Water Way, a canal-side cafe restaurant.

–> His funny and random muscle spasms, especially when he gets startled in his dreams and suddenly waves his arms around like he was conducting a Beethoven symphony with an invisible orchestra

–> His funny, expressive face — lifting his eyebrows sceptically or questioningly (like I often do), opening his eyes a crack and frowning up at us as if to spot-check that we’re still there, his sudden and fleeting smiles (which have become recognisably smiles now, instead of half-grimaces of semi-controlled muscles), his solemn, wide-eyed look of curiosity

–> His hiccoughs (like Daddy) — he’s often happy to lie down and ride the wave of hiccoughs… his expression sometimes calm, sometimes surprised, as his body spasms rhythmically

–> His myriad, amusing sleeping poses

–> His salty-buttery and sweet maple-syrupy smell (even his pee smells like that – or maybe it’s his pee or my milk which smells like that). His scalp also smelled a bit soapy when he was younger

My emotions have been fairly roller-coaster over the past couple of weeks. Although happily enough, I haven’t really taken it out on the Boy so far. Except once. But that’s also because he’s been an absolute bedrock of support. When the community midwife visited me on Day 4 (August 4th), she said it’s normal to feel and be weepy when my milk comes in. And in my head, I was smug and smirking: “Except for the fact my nips hurt, which upset me, I’m perfectly stable. No weepiness for me, thank you very much.” But then, the very next day, when my boobs were achey and pretty rock-hard (probably when my milk came in), I ended up bawling like a baby with exhaustion, stress and general hormones I guess. Which I rather didn’t expect, given that I had been incredibly calm and not at all hormonal during my pregnancy.

When I’m exhausted and struggling, I sometimes wish there was a Returns Policy on babies. But when he’s sleeping calmly, or smiling or doing on of the ‘good’ things above, then I feel a surge of affection for and pride in him.

Whenever the Boy and I are frustrated I try to remind ourselves not to expect too much of him because he was, after all, removed from his cosy cocoon a week early. He was only supposed to come out on 8th August, so he would be understandably grumpy about being booted out of paradise earlier than expected. But I’m hoping he’ll soon become a reasonable boy. Because soon, the excuse that he’s still really small won’t wash any more.