The Senakams | Corgi + 3

First week home

First of all, thanks for all your well wishes through comments and e-mails! I'm sorry I don't have time to write each and everyone of you back yet, but please know that every time I receive a note from you, it brightens my day a little bit to know that someone is thinking of us :)

It's hard to believe we've been home with Eva for a week already. You may wonder how on earth do I find time to sit here and write this post, right?

Well, I consider myself super duper lucky to have a fantastic support team. First off, Eva's been a fairly good sleeper. As long as she's fed, burped, changed (provided that we read her cues correctly, something we're still learning), she'll usually sleep a couple of solid hours. Although I heard that as they get older, they'll need less sleep. And I'm also fairly sure that I've jinxed things now that I've declared how good she is, ha ha. Wish us luck!

Hubby has been phenomenal- other than producing milk, he pretty much takes care of everything else that needs to be done with the baby (including cleaning up her projectile poop that shot all over the wall and carpet from the changing table... who knew?). And not only that, he's calm, patient, and nurturing when I'm a nutcase whenever Eva fusses. While I overthink and overanalyze everything (and drives myself crazy in the process), he just have this intuition (and again, more patience) to get her on the right track.

My parents have also been stars in the supporting cast. My mom's always cooking something yummy (other than the Chinese medicine...) and nutritious in the kitchen, doing all the chores, and generally taking care of her daughter so I can take care of my daughter. My dad's been chauffeuring everyone around, and keeping Bryson entertained when we're all busy serving the new queen of the house.

Eva and I are the luckiest girls :)

Here are some random pictures from this first week:

Asleep on my tummy... so sweet...

 Bryson playing "My Sister's Keeper" :) And thanks to all of you who asked about him, he's doing great with his new sister; at first he was a little scared and not sure what to do with her, but now he seems to have accepted her as part of the family. Although his schedule's completely whacked, he started "barking" this morning at our 4 a.m. feeding for his breakfast. Poor Bryson... Speaking of support, almost forgot to mention that Picasso's parents have been so helpful with him, they took him to the vet, gave him a bath, and took him with Picasso to the dog park. Thanks, Auntie Rita and Uncle Brian!

Her one-week birthday bash :) Don't look at my face, I was trying to hold back tears... I just couldn't believe she's a week old and we haven't broken her yet (although one day as I was changing her I thought I yanked her arm too hard and broke her arm when I heard a pop... who knew baby joints can pop too?) Anyway, I'm just a water faucet these days- I literally cried over spilled milk the other day... the postpartum hormone roller coaster ride is really as fun as people say.

 
First time in the still-much-too-big stroller. Bryson feeling neglected...

 Trying out the Rockin' Baby carrier. She's pretty happy here, but just about 15 minutes later, promptly threw up half of her last feeding all over the both of us. Oh what joy.

 
Her first pediatrician office visit. All was well, as the pediatrician pointed out, these early visits are almost more for us nervous parents than our healthy babies.

She's Finally Here!

One whole week past her due date, our daughter, Eva, finally decided to make her grand entrance this past Sunday! (You can already tell timeliness isn't her thing).

She was 21 inches and 8 lb 4 oz (all those Krispy Kreme's taking revenge), and I felt every ounce of it... (if you're interested in more details, write me an e-mail and I'll be glad to tell you ALL about it; it's probably TMI for public consumption here).

But hey, in the end, this is what you get:

I guess it's all worth it :)

We're super exhausted as you can imagine. Everything people told us about caring for a newborn is true- the constant struggle to feed, change diaper, burp, repeat... and doing all that while you're sore and completely sleep-deprived is super trying.

We'll keep you posted as we get more caught up with sleep. In the meantime, enjoy more photos :)

 

Overbaked

OK folks, if you're checking in to see if we're "Corgi + 3" yet, I'm sorry to disappoint you. The bun's officially overbaked.

I'm 3 friggin' days past my due date!! And I'm starting to get antsy... I had to get started on another crafting project or I'll go out of my mind... Here's yet another stroller blanket in the making:

Took me a while to decide on this color combination (but hey, I've got nothing but time these days). I think the solids break up the patterns a bit and makes it less busy but still playful and cute. As I also found out, it's no easy feat operating a sewing machine while sporting a 40+wk pregnant belly- think totally outstretched arms and stepping on the foot pedal on porky tippy-toes.

And yesterday my ob told me if she doesn't make her appearance soon, I'll have to be induced next week, a scary, scary thought... coz I heard induction = Pitocin = pain. Plus she won't be getting any smaller... yikes! Maybe she's enjoying her 5-star accomodation a bit too much.... perhaps I should go on a hunger strike, effectively cutting off her room service and maybe that'll coax her out (but let me have a Krispy Creme before that...yum...)

You know what though, apart from having more crafting time, there's another upside to this whole situation... HP and company, here we come! Oh and AMC- don't worry, I'll bring a towel to sit on ;)

On Nesting and Resting

Yep, still here... 39 weeks and 2 days (5 days from D-day!), can you believe it? After all the early drama, I'm a bit surprised (but not dismayed) that she still hasn't checked out yet.

But hey, my parents have arrived, most last minute prep is done (she has a place to sleep and diaper drawer is stocked), and I'm getting paid for "resting" when I'm not "nesting", who can complain?

Speaking of nesting, you might have noticed the new, cleaned-up look of the blog, like it?

It's still a working progress, but I'm so sick of the previous clutter that I decided it's time for some cyber-cleaning. And once I started, it's hard to stop- I think I "threw out" half the junk I had there before- it's almost as gratifying as cleaning out my closet! Now it's looking so "clean", I'm tempted to add some color back to it (I think indecisiveness is a side effect of late-stage pregnancy...) What do you think?

And speaking of resting, I'm getting plenty of that these days, as my army of help parents have finally arrived from Hong Kong a few days ago :) As much as I fretted over having my parents around all the time (well, technically not all the time since they're staying at Picasso's in-law unit) before they got here, it's really nice to have some family time together (we've lived in separate states/countries for the past 10+ years), and hear stories about me when I was a baby...

Like the other day, I strolled by a baby store with my mom, while I was oogling over some completely impractical baby stuff (like a $40 baby skirt or something equally offensive), my mom told me that's exactly what they did when I was a baby, running to the store and bought me everything cute and impractical on the shelf as soon as they get their monthly pay check...

And here's my mom when she was pregnant with me 30 some years ago...

And here's her with me when I was a newborn...

Isn't she so cute? And I just looked disappointingly like a wrinkly, grumpy old man... I'm so glad they decided to keep me anyway :P

And if you're wondering about how Bryson our Addison Dog is doing, he's had some up days and down days... I'm sure all the people and all the fuss that's going on with new baby prep isn't helping with his stress. But he seems to have adjusted to my parents' presence (all the bribery my dad's throwing him under the table doesn't hurt), and we're gradually learning how to titrate his steroid dose to cope with the various stressors in his doggie life.

"I can smell changes in the air... hmm..... I wonder what's cooking...." Oh Bryson, you'll find out very soon ;)