lil nugget.

I wish there was something really interesting to tell you all, but honestly we spend a lot of time eating, sleeping, hanging out on the play gym or hugging it out. Joe's been busy at work with the quarter, so he's only been home one day these past two weeks. Yesterday, we took Liam out to the Mutterberatung (it's a free service in a community-type center and there is a midwife there who answers any questions and weighs and measures the babies). He's up to 3.4kg (about 7.5lbs) now, so he's still a seriously lil nugget. He slept the entire time in his carrier, so soundly, that I began to spaz out (thanks again Karla for all the factoids about kids suffocating to death in those things) and made Joe incessantly check to see he was breathing. We also hit up a cafe near our house and had cappuccinos and our new favorite pastries (Mandelstange -- direct translation: almond sticks; indirect translation: heavenly, flaky goodness). We'd transferred him to his stroller for that part of the day and even though he was wide awake the whole time we were there, he was just hanging out, sucking on his pacifier and getting waved at by the cute little boy sitting next to us. We're looking forward to Nonna arriving tomorrow and lots more 'excitement' like yesterday. Timing is pretty great too as the weather has finally turned around and I'm starting to feel well enough to get out more...cafes, beer gardens, lakefront - here we come!

Home, Sweet Home.

The last few days in the hospital helped us to really get in a groove and start to feel even more comfortable with understanding Liam & his needs. Of course, we wish all of you could be hugging and loving on him right now, but we honestly couldn't feel luckier or more blessed to have had our first baby here. The week in hospital was the right amount of time to get us ready to come home and manage our lil dude on our own. We gave Liam his first family bath which he loved (minus the part about being wet & cold afterwards), went on our hospital sponsored 'champagne dinner for two' and got ready to come home.
We live very close to the hospital and the plan all along had been to take the tram or walk home (we did take the tram to the hospital before he was born). However, the c-section definitely foiled that plan, and we decided rather than try to figure out our car seat for the first time and strap it into a taxi for a less than 5-minute ride, I'd get the taxi home & Joe strolled Liam to the tram and home. It worked out perfectly for us ghetto parents!
Once home Saturday was a blur of getting organized, Joe running out to the shops, cleaning, unpacking, Skypeing, etc. Sunday we had guests in the morning (who came bearing delicious pecan rolls) and evening (we ordered Dominos) and Monday more friends came and brought us tacos for us for dinner & the delicious Liam cake. It was a public holiday Monday, so Joe went back to work Tuesday (despite having 2 weeks paid paternity, Liam's birth fell right before the start of a quarter report which means Joe will work and save the days for later on). Liam & I had our neighbors come by yesterday for a visit, but other than that, it was a relatively quiet day for both us and it felt great to be able to do everything on my own. Of course, it's not so tough with a relaxed baby, and the mid-day naps don't hurt either!

My last day of work, 5 April.

From Misc

I'm going to miss this pack of goofy, energetic kids. I took a quick look at the photos after they were taken that day and said "how come no one told me my belly was THAT big?" and Ali (top right) says "well, we didn't want to make you feel bad." So, yeah, definitely going to miss the witty, 7-year old sass!

One perk to a c-section...

A few extra days in the hospital to have 3 delicious meals delivered to me daily. I happened to be talking to Mags one day while I was eating and she noted something along the lines of 'come up for air'. Can't imagine where Liam's gotten his greedy eating habits from...

The Liam Life.

Still living and loving the hospital lifestyle. Joe's been going to work everyday since Tuesday but staying the nights with us here and working on finding our routine with night changes and feeds. Liam's been busy lately; he's had his hip tests, hearing tests, first bath, circumcision, and his first visitors. All of the results have been positive and despite all the nurses telling us 'his circumcision hurt,' (no shit, his penis was cut ladies), we all (p's included) have handled it really well and there was only a 10-minute period of intermittent crying. We hugged it out though.

Other than that, (knock on wood,) he spends most of his time sleeping, crying when his diaper is changed and then falling back to sleep while eating. It's a damn good lil 'routine' so far.

William John rockin the real world.

I don't think either of us fully comprehended how flippin amazing, how powerful, how life-altering this was going to be. There is no unbiased sentiment in room 129. We're totally, utterly smitten by our skinny lil stinker.

Here's a link to his mug shot on the hospital website. It's hard to see, but he was scratching his own face a lot during the first day. In the photo they gave us, he looks like he just got done with 5-rounds of baby fight club (I'd have hated to see the other kid;)!