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Ewan is three weeks old today. Nutty.

The past three weeks have been a total blur, as I suspected they would be. Week One was ‘get used to having a baby in the house’ week. Andrew spent this week cleaning, cooking and generally keeping the house from falling down while I attempted to master the art of breastfeeding. (A note about that: I care not what the breastfeeding advocates of the world say – breastfeeding is not a magical or beautiful bonding experience. At best, I think it goes from being the most frustrating learning experience to a relatively straightforward and necessary chore. I enjoy the fact that the Kid is eating and I like that I’m able to provide for him but I do not feel like I’m bonding with him; indeed, I usually just feel bored. What? It’s a lot of time to just be sitting around. I’ve taken to reading at the same time but then I feel like a bad mother for not paying attention. Sigh.). Neither of us really slept and we both drank our weight in coffee. Week Two was ‘meet the grandparents and attempt to leave the house’ week. Two of the three sets of grandparents came to visit so Ewan had is first stroller walk, carrier walk, trip to the park, trip to the museum, and restaurant meal out. A busy week. And Week Three was ‘recover from company and try to establish some semblance of a routine’ week. Andrew went back to the gym, and I went back to pulling together the wedding, balancing a baby on my boob while filling out some last minute wedding invites that somehow did not make it out the first time around.

So here we are at the start of Week Four and I found myself on Saturday suddenly wondering if I should be doing something with the baby. You know, more than feeding and changing and cuddling with him. Should I be playing with him in some primitive educational way? Should I be eating certain things to make him smarter through boob milk? Should I be watching out for certain developmental events and if so, what events? A friend asked me on Saturday about what age certain things happen (crawling, sitting up, talking, etc) and it occurred to me that I do not know. I can’t even ballpark it. That’s because while I was pregnant, I focused my reading on how to look after the basics for baby, and how to handle a colicky baby (I assumed mine would be…thus far I have thankfully been wrong). I never bothered to look at the age and stage thing…eep. I realize that the age and stage thing is an estimate anyways, but still. I should know something, no? So Saturday Ezmy started to worry a bit that she was a substandard mother.

But today Ezmy knows a bit better. I still don’t really know when things happen but I have a great baby book (Sears book) that gives me some helpful estimates. Woot. This same book also informed me that what my baby needs right now is playful chatter on my part, food, clean diapers and cuddles. Check, check, check, and double check. Phew. I don’t know…he seems happy. How can you really tell with babies? I mean, he still looks at me like he’s unsure of whether I’m a good thing. And sometimes he looks at me with this ‘Really, you’re the mum I got stuck with?’ look but I have decided to pass this look off as gas.

He does smile sometimes. This is encouraging.

So the motherhood thing is growing on me. I don’t feel like the best mum in the world but I’m certainly not the worst. So far, so good.