the weigh in

that really is me in the picture, honest.......you can tell by my big feet and long toes. the midwife Shannon is very generously protecting my modesty as she weighs me at one week old.

despite best intentions not to make comparisons with my big brother, here's a few interesting facts: at birth i was 1.5cm taller than Joel, but my head circumference was 2cm smaller. i was 6oz heavier at birth, despite being born ten days earlier.

due to his reluctance/inability to eat, joel took three weeks to regain his birth weight, but here i am at one week and ten hours and already i'm 9lbs and 4oz. hoorah.

what was that?

it's one hour before i'm a week old. here's how i celebrated a few minutes ago:

feed feed feed .. mmmm .. nice .. eyes closed .. ahhhhh .. yes this is the life .. a bit wasted really. thanks mom .. wipe out ..
.. swaddle swaddle swaddle .. "what a work of art" thinks mom .. lie down in crib ..
.. wait for it .. wait for it .. warm parents huddle in bed .. everyone just about to doze off .. wait for it ..

THBUUUUGGHHGHHHUUUGGGHHHHH .. pause .. farrrrttt

.. pause .. snigger snigger snort. at this point dad tries to invent some rule about the first person to giggle deals with the evidence. mom definitely giggled first. however, as she pointed out she had been the one feeding me for the last 20mins while dad lay half asleep. dad deals with the "yellow thai bean curd curry" that is my current excretion of choice.

[comment from dad: "I don't know if you've tried to play calvin ball with someone who gave birth within the last week, but there's only ever likely to be one winner, and it won't be you!]night night all, we intend to be asleep for my one week anniversary.

chinese?

today i'm a little jaundiced, my eyes are mostly shut, and i've spent some time crying. nothing to worry about, just part of settling in. however dad has given me a special new name for today

"sun wai ling"

looks

related?

oliver --- day two --- joel

party

given the short notice, mom and dad did a really good job of organising not one but two welcome parties for me on sunday morning. both had bands with live music, people dancing (well, joel dancing at any rate), lots of adoring fans wanting to say hello and snacks appropriate for the time of day - meaning plenty of caffeine for dad and milk for me. joel got to snack on bagels, hang out with some of the youth group, and play with some toys too. after mom had shared a few words of appreciation it was time to go home to bed. aaaah......what a busy life i lead.

saturday

after a fairly long night, when I caught up on all the eating I missed during the day (too many other exciting things were happening to me then) another wet day dawned in Vancouver. we were visited in the morning by another midwife, Julia. now there's a lady with an obsession about bowel habits! she asked after the whole family, except dad. she took a close look at me, stuck a very sharp piece of metal into my foot in order to make it bleed, and pronounced mom and I as doing very well under the circumstances.

dad and joel went out and jumped in a few puddles in the afternoon, whilst mom and I sat in a bath of much warmer water. I was actually still fully dressed and sitting on her shoulder for much of the time, until I fell asleep, and then she put me in my chair and added a load more water to the tub.

having fed pretty consistently during the day, I only wanted to eat every two hours during the night, much to mom's relief. I didn’t really do much crying either, other than between 3am and 4 am, so all in all we were in pretty good shape on sunday morning.

3 labour quotes

Tradition dictates that the labour room is a sanctuary, and what is said there should really not be repeated elsewhere. However, some things are too funny not to share ..

1) Shannon the midwife: addressing Susan the nurse, and Tom the husband, as they continue to hyperventilate into each of Liz's ears in an effort to get her to pant and stop pushing.

"Nice job you two!"

Liz heard that, and was ever so slightly put out

2) Liz the mother: as another contraction follows rather quickly after the previous one. "That was never 6 minutes". Tom responds, "it's not supposed to be 6 minutes"

Liz says: "ohhh, I liked 6 minutes"

3) Tom the husband: within an hour of birth, after sitting with Oliver on his bare chest for a while, he returned Oliver to Liz.

"Can I put my shirt back on? I'm feeling a bit self-conscious."

All the girls thought that was particularly amusing somehow.

settle

so this is where I get to live now. warm, dark, kind of noisy. not all that different from where I've been for the last nine months. the same soundtrack seems to be playing too, largely comprised of variations on a theme of "joel, no".

it took us a while to escape from the hospital. having initially been keen to throw us out onto the streets in a typhoon at 3am, by daybreak the nurses on day shift were feeling kinder. first of all we had to wait for mom to have a needle stuck in her shoulder – something to do with my blood type. I'm a positive baby, as you’d expect, but mom's negative. not good. I felt sorry for her. someone stuck a sharp piece of metal into me last night, and it hurt.

the next delay was due to the fact my temperature was a bit low. I needed to spend an hour snoozing on dad's bare chest to warm up a bit, and then I was ready for my first bath. more minor trouble then ensued as I started bringing up rather a lot of mucous. this combined with a certain jitteriness possibly caused by having a low blood sugar was enough for the nurses to call the midwife back in. by 3pm Shannon had arrived to take a look at me, and after checking a few things she pronounced me fit enough to go home.

we hadn’t been back all that long before I got to meet my big brother Joel. I think he's going to be a lot of fun. he's been practising rocking my crib in preparation for my arrival, and does it really well. I think he'll appreciate my kicking skills more than mom has thus far, too. my next fans to visit were Melissa and Tracy. they actually went to the hospital to see us, and couldn’t believe we were home already. they brought mom some really pretty flowers and Melissa gave me a lovely cuddle – that's all a little guy really needs.

announced

Oliver Sopwith

(Thomas Oliver Matthew)

Nov 3, 2006 - 00.55AM

9lb 0oz

click image for large pic

home

home was dark and warm and easy
home became bright and fuzzy and noise-filled
home moved through streets and lights and weather
home is welcoming and safe and special and now and future and family and ..
.. i like it here

line
1) Feb to 00.30, Nov 3
2) Nov 3 - 00.55 to 17.30
3) Nov 3 - 17.30 to 17.50
4) Nov 3 17.50 to now

begin

I have to say life in the big wide world is really fun so far. Last night about 6.00pm something started happening around me. Things changed and my head began to move.

At 00.55 this morning, I popped out to meet the people behind some familiar voices - they're nice people.

I'm 9lbs heavy and looking mighty fine :)

I'm already feeding .. Nice. I'm sleeping of course. Amazingly Mom and Dad have had some sleep too. It's now 10.15 and we sit in our pine panelled private suite in the place I call home -Vancouver, BC.

Hello everyone, I have arrived, looking forward to meeting many of you soon. Oliver.