Come a long way, baby.

There's so much that's hideous about the newborn stage - the not sleeping, the inability to amuse themselves, the constant spitting up. Joel told me to treasure this because I'm going to miss it one day, and I was like, HAHAHA I don't think any woman in her right mind misses the newborn stage. It's nice to hold OTHER people's newborns, but having your own is kind of hellish. I'm nostalgic for, like, six-month-old Eleanor, and one-year-old and eighteen-month-old Eleanor, but I am so glad to see the distant back of newborn-Eleanor.

THAT BEING SAID. I'm trying to appreciate what is excellent about this age as well - the tininess, the fuzzy baby-deer head, the smell, the sleeping. Because when the Geneva Wren sleeps, she sleeps a LOT. There are days when we walk down to the park and Geneva falls asleep on the way and then I just stash her under a tree and check on her every few minutes. Still alive!

She's coming up on seven weeks old. My sister's due date was exactly a month after my surgery date, but then they moved her due date back three days. I know it's just an estimate, but when you're nine months pregnant, you're hanging all your hopes on that day. So that was crushing, and when she'd gone a week past THAT day, they decided to induce her. Only they were too busy that morning, maybe that afternoon. Maybe tomorrow. And tomorrow. And tomorrow. Three days after a week after her second due date, they induced her, and yesterday my third niece was born.

Rosey Joy, what a bean. I can't wait to bite her face. She's my sister's first baby, and looking at her I realize how far we've come. I'm always all like,  Geneva can't do anything, but Rosey REALLY CAN'T DO ANNNNNNNYTHING. Geneva can (as of, like, today) wallop her parrot, kind of half on purpose, and she is always like, WOAH LOOK AT HIM GO.

With your first baby, you're hyper aware of their development, but your second (and, I'm assuming, any subsequent) is just sort of a helpless newborn until suddenly they're not. You'll be eating ice cream sandwiches in no time, Genny Wren.