getting into the groove

so yesterday was the first day since el's been born that i actually sort of felt 'normal'. now normal is a funny term after you've given birth. the headache in my vagina still lingers. this is certainly not normal. i have a fancy, soft, fleshy belly. again, new and not normal, at least, not for me before. also, i do things like sit in the back of the car with my baby and leak milk on my toes. not really normal. but, i guess those are normal for me now. new and normal. but other than all those lil thangs, we had a good, quasi normal day. we took little sweetie to dr. sandra who said that she was developing just perfectly. she weighs at whopping 7 pounds, 4 ounces now and seems to be taking fantastically to her mama's leche. in fact, mama predicted her new birth weight (to the ounce i might add - and who said i was lousy with numbers?) we showed dr. s her little baby acne that has developed on the sweet folds of her neck and dr. s said that was normal and not to buy any oxy or anything. and so we carried on. we then had to go to the vet to pay some ginormous lucy bills since she continues to carry on with all sorts of mysterious, post baby in the house, problems. luckily the xrays are fine and she has just been having lots of random sprains and/or bites. good god dog.

so then we decided to head to the rattlesnake for a family walk before the weather heated up too much. mama was feeling like she could walk without exacerbating the headache in her vagina too much, so off we went. little miss elie loved the walk and made her special little dolphin noises the whole time in the sprout pouch. it's kind of like she is her own little ghetto blaster and she makes noises that are appropriate for the activity - sorta like a soundtrack. yesterday in the pouch it was an "ooh wee woo wow gulp breathe" kind of song of delight and summer love. last night it was a slower, "so, feeling swell, and trying to beat the heat, we headed to the rattlesnake for a walk. sweet eliewooh wooh gulp gurgle good dreams ooh yah" kind of song. so we did a two mile loop or so and i didn't end up bleeding too much or with too bad a v-ache. i'm on the mend!

after hiking we came home for a little lunch/feed/nap (mom and baby) and then decided to join bobby, joellen, solan, jiah and mama and papa shannon at red rocks. what an amazing spot that is. very river runs through it. because it was a monday we were almost the only folks there and could laze around and not feel hassled by silly college kids and their excessive beer drinking. little elie slept most of the time and mama even got to swim for a while. then, just our serendipitous luck, a nice lady on the beach asked how old elie was. i said, proudly, today is her two week birthday. then she explained that she is a photographer and that she wants to get some newborn shots on her website and could she, perhaps, come by the house and do a photo shoot of elie? are you kidding, of course! i had been hoping to do something like that, but it's so darn expensive and i'm not going back to work full time and blah, blah, so i had sorta backed off the whole fancy birth announcement idea. well, this fabulous lady set me back on course. so today at one thirty little el will have her first photo shoot! and because i love to share the wealth, the photo lady will go up to bobby and jo's afterwards to photograph baby jiah. i love how the world works!

finally then it was off to biga pizza to pick up dinner for the fam. mom had one of her low blood sugar breast feeding surges right when it was time to eat. this seems to be what happens these days. and it doesn't matter when i eat dinner. if it's six thirty, she's suddenly awake and hungry. eight thirty, it's the same thing. so i tried to snarf some food and drink a most heavenly glass of pinot but, alas, she still insisted on being with me (though jeffy is fabulous at trying to avert her attention and distract, jiggle, shush and love her while i try to eat). so we breast fed for a while, but then she started doing her head banger, i don't really want to eat, i just want to play with your boob and pretend like i'm listening to quiet riot routine, so i got frustrated and she got frustrated and we began our meltdown. so elie screamed and i tried all the tricks and ended up slowly walking around joellen's neighborhood hoping that the neighbors wouldn't call the cops for disturbing the peace or some other horrible thing. she settled down enough to get in the carseat, but then she started in again at home, again, headbanging on the boob, but not eating. finally jeffy did some good burping and we realized she had some serious gas (she is her mother's daughter!). so finally her belly settled, and she ate, and we all fell into another blissful, cooy, dolphin song slumber.

one last note. your baby's fits seem similar to the memory of birth contractions in that you know they are terrible and hard in the moment, but upon reflection, they don't seem half as bad. i know i had tears of frustration and sadness and wanting so, so badly to help my sad and scared little angel but not knowing how, yet when i write about it, it just seems like another little piece of our otherwise fantastic day. interesting. i also cannot ever remember what exactly happens in the night. again, these are kinda like labor memories. i know i get up and feed her and change her or whatever, but i can never remember exactly when or for how long or what have you. it's this cool new hazy dream land that i guess is a part of parenthood, cuz jeff can't remember the details either. i guess at the end of the day, the details don't matter, it's just that we covered all our basis.

i just love her so.