7.11

"what time is it?"
"seven-eleven."
"that's a special time because..."
Yep. That's what time Audrey was born.
"little one, you're exactly some number of weeks and days now."
He's clever, but sometimes you'd neve know it. "fourteen weeks and two days... That's one hundred days!"
Creepy. So, today, darling daughter, on the very day that we told the paediatrician my radical diet change fixed your "reflux" and I was treated like an idiot for half an hour, and ten some strange (unrelated) woman tried to undress me in public (see previous post) and then you endured three hours of violin.... Today you have been earthside for one hundred days. I hope we're living up to expectations.

Yah. Wrapped for a reason, folks.

Oh how I laughed....
Random woman: what do you have in there?
Me: a baby.
RW: oh, how sweet (reaching to pull wrap aside)
Me: (stepping backwards) yes, she's feeding right now.
RW: can I see?
Me: she's feeding.
RW: (pulls at wrap and sees top of Audrey's head and half my breast) oh, you don't have to SHOW everyone (I think she was horrified)
Me: I'm not. See this wrap?

(I really wish I'd had a small cardboard sign in my bag saying STUPID that I could have hung around her neck. Or that I'd had the presence of mind to pick up the ugly necklace she was wearing off her skin and scream "my eyes are BLEEDING!"... But I'm nice. Or something.)

Nearly three months on...

What can I say? It's been a busy few weeks. There's been a return to our usual programming plus baby, which is pretty ok except for the days that it's not. Those would be the days where my unwitting consumption of some dairy or soy derivative unhinges every wheel and sends them careening in  all directions. Yes, there have been several mornings where we've had the delightful cycle known as "Feed, Chuck, Scream" running on high rotation while in the background I perform the complementary and lesser-known "Wipe, Wash, Hang, with the very special cadenza: Express-and-pour-away" for one pair of hands and breasts.

I digress.
Audrey, you are thirteen weeks old tomorrow. Nearly three calendar months. Yes, I remember what life was like before you, but it's quite astonishing that you are so present and so here in the world when it's been such a short time. You've decided you're capable of sleeping seven and sometimes eight-hour stretches, which delights and gratifies us. You still cry for no apparent reason (usually pants, wind, hunger or plain old tiredness - which we, your idiot parents, only recognise in hindsight) but now you smile, and that balances out the niggly stretches nicely. Already you've spent more time in my violin studio than my students spend there in a year, and I wonder at what age you'll start humming or singing along. You fill out 000 Bonds Wondersuits and I love how cuddly you feel, like a small terry teddy bear. The sweetest times are our 4am feed, when you're the very smallest teaspoon in our big bed, or when you nap snuggled against my back or chest, wrapped and content. So far, so good, baby girl.