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.