Becoming Domestic

Our little baby arrived in the small hours of Thursday 24th January and we were thrilled to discover that the mystery resident was a baby girl all along. We have named her Scarlett and cannot believe how tiny or how lovely she is.

Of course it is now a constant juggle to manage a house, a business, two five year olds and a newborn but compared to the inexperienced parenting of tiny twins in 2003 this is an easy time. The bigger children are already in a fixed routine which involves them waking at 7am, having breakfast, getting dressed and washed for school and then being at school until 3pm. The baby has been extremely easy to fit in with this routine primarily by starting her day at 7am for her first feed and then structuring her naps/feeds throughout the day to ensure she is both well rested and well fed by the time it is bath & bedtime at 6-7pm.

We give her a bottle of expressed milk at 10pm (enabling me to get a nice long interupted stint of sleep from 9pm) and then she only wakes once or twice for a feed after that. No matter what kind of night we have had I wake her each morning at 7am to start the day.

She loves being cuddled and isn’t at all fond of being put down to fall asleep on her own but being only 15 days in this world we’ll let her off. It is a joy to have the luxury of snuggling one small babe who lived so long within when the last experience of new motherhood was fraught with tensions as ‘The Other Twin’ always was next to the baby being dealt with needing its turn and there was never any time for lovely special things like cuddles, quiet crooning or just being awe struck by the miracle of little human life.

Small Boat

You’re safely launched and named,
champagned,
and you rest now alongside
while we two stuff your tiny hold
with food and weightier freight - our pride,
ambitions, hopes - all the old
cargo with which we were burdened,
for you to carry onwards
over our horizon
to futures too distant forour eyes.

Some day
too soon, you’ll slip your morring
and sail away
upon the morning
while we will wave you off
across the miles
with small brave smiles
and handy hankerchiefs.

Our hearts’ new cockleshell,
we wish you well.

(Don Barnard)

Posted on February 8th, 2008 under Baby and Pregnancy • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback