Less than Twelve Parsecs

We've been holding Mara on our chests as much as possible since day one; the first 3 nights after coming back from the hospital we were so terrified of anything terrible happening to her that one of us was on duty at any point in time.

Today Mara made a little hyena laughter while in her light sleep. Ever since we saw her first at the hospital, Greg and I have been listing all the little animals to which we can compare her, and I guess this is as good a time as any to write up the list: She started mewing like a tiny kitty on her very first week, which gained her the nickname of "matzuc mic". This was confirmed the second week when she started making little paw-like fists around her cheeks while breastfeeding, and even when she was hoping for a feeding. Soon after that she started thoroughly stretching every part of her body whenever she would wake up, just like a limber feline. Yay, no better time to share a baby Willow photo! Look similar?

Mara woke up with a very large pooopy diaper that was leaking pee out the back. "Yay!" says Greg and gets up drowsily while Mara is fidgeting, I open one eye lid and close it back swiftly as soon as I see that Greg "has got it". My 3am-10am shift was over an hour ago.

Several days ago we did an online hangout with two of our friends from back in Florida to present the cute baby for the first time.  Rochelle is the coolest physical therapist, which is a blessing because every now and then we get to bug her about Greg's sports injuries and my old-age&lack-of-adequate-exercise joint and muscle trouble.

We are comfortable enough during feedings now that I can do minimal chores on the tablet some of the time. Thus, I get to look up more solutions for the whitefly infestation in the trees in our back yard, order a new population for the worm factory 360 to replace the ones that reached a tragic end in the watermelon flood, and some ladybugs to eat the afids off our vines while making our garden a happy place.

This night was interesting, Mara slept much better than the previous weeks due to us discovering the rocker chair: and how to successfully keep her asleep in it: we first put her to sleep on Greg's chest until she goes on deep sleep, state in which we call her Mamaligutza based on the Romanian name for polenta, because she is limp and mushy in this state, then transfer her to the rocker very slowly.

Today we got our first postpartum checkup after leaving the hospital! It was a bit stressful for me because we'd be finding out how the recovery process was going, and I always feel this weird pressure to "do well". I'd had an awesome labor experience, so much better than anything I had imagined, to the point that I could answer right away the question "Would you do it again?" with a confident "Yes!" .