i finally gave in and started using facebook. since my attention span on any one thing is short (yet extremely focused), i’ve been over there for a bit, so check out updates here: http://www.facebook.com/davidmonnerat.

i’ve started moving more of my photography related stuff over to my other site and blog. you can see the newest post here: http://www.davidmonnerat.com/blog/2009/12/02/photography-starts-at-home/

i had these grand plans yesterday to write a blog post, and to start doing one every sunday to get at least one thing written every week.

i even had material. we took some pictures of junior yesterday, and i was going to put them up, and talk about them, and tell everyone how amazingly awesome he is, and how handsome, and how at 5 weeks old i think he’s going to be a doctor hockey player astronaut something special when he grows up. i mean, it’s certainly not easy but, knock on wood, it’s not as hard as some of our friends have had it recently with their newborns who had stuff going on medically. we’re both tired, and he’s a lot of work, and there is a lot of stuff we’re trying to figure out still (and likely will never figure out). he cries, he has gas (a lot) and is often inconsolable, but yet, it’s still the most amazing thing. HE is the most amazing thing. i swear he smiled a couple of times already, and a few of those weren’t gas related. but as many times as he’s been endlessly crying, he’s also fallen asleep in my arms, or just lied there and looked at me.

see? i can’t even stay focused. i was going to say what happened yesterday that prevented me from writing a post, but i just get so wrapped up in how amazing this experience has been so far that i can’t seem to complete a thought. well, being really tired doesn’t help, either. but its mostly him ok, right now it’s definitely him, crying on the cough next to me (still awesome, though).

ok, so where was i? something about sundays turning in to monday, awesome 5-week olds, lots of (current) crying, him grabbing my finger with his tiny little hand, getting peed on, epic bowel movements, little sleep, and a whole lot of love. the moments right after (or hours after) he finally falls asleep and makes a noise, and you wonder whether he’s gong to wake up. FINALLY being able to stay asleep yourself when he makes some of the routine noises in the middle of the night.

ah, i have no idea where this post started or where it is ending, so i will end it (and start getting ready to get some sleep) with a few of the pictures we took yesterday.

see? isn’t he awesome?

we took a few more pictures tonight. i wanted to try to get some feet pictures, and we tried a few different poses. of course, he’s not really strong enough yet to do some of what i’m trying to do, so we wound up with a bunch of pictures with really funny faces. blackmail for when he’s older!

yesterday was my first day back to work after taking two weeks off for the birth of our son. i feel like i fell a little to easily back in to it. some things had piled up over those weeks, so i was busy from the moment the computer came on and didn’t stop until i left for a doctor appointment and then again until i left to go home. fortunately, the appointment was a nice little break, and i got to see junior sleeping in the back of the car, and that was a very nice treat. and coming home to wife and son was definitely a new experience (even if he was in a mood when i got home!). someday i’ll be coming home from work, and he will greet me at the door. then i’l come home, and he’ll be out with his friends. then off to college. woah! slow down there, buddy. right now, i come home, he eats, cries, and poops. as unexciting as that may sound, i’ll take it any day.

ok, maybe it’s just us. it’s not, though, but for the sake of not appearing too biased, let’s pretend. but this kid is darned adorable! we took advantage of one of his waking spells today to grab a few shots. of course, he is my son, so having him naked on a chair was dangerous, we knew, and he didn’t disappoint. fortunately i was just far enough away to avoid the stream.

critical me, of course there are things i want to do different next shoot, but he’s going to be around for a good long time, so i’ll have plenty of time to practice. poor kid!

our son was born just over a week ago. it’s been an unbelievable week, filled with amazing joy, new sounds, new responsibilities, little sleep, and a lot of love.

dodge and weave: ever since we found out we were having a boy, i’ve received a lot of tips on how to avoid getting peed on. pee-pee tee-pee and other such contraptions were a regular recommendation, and honestly, having never really changed diapers before, in my head i feel like i worked it up to the point of paranoia.it wasn’t a crippling fear, mind you, but i was definitely aware of the possibility and maybe overly mindful. the first few days seem like one long day, and i don’t remember if it was the first or second diaper change, but i was so engrossed in the fact that i was changing my son’s diaper that i never saw it coming. he gave me no warning; no sound, nothing visible. we’re changing the diaper, not putting anything on top of his newly-circumsised boy  parts, and the next thing you know, there is a tiny stream of fluid flowing from my boy. at first, we laughed a little and just kind of dodged and weaved around it. after a second or two, he stopped, and we chuckled once more, saying “ah, of course. that’s our boy.” we started to get back to the business at hand, when the flood gates were unleashed. this time, it was no one or two second trickle. it was powerful enough to put out a medium-sized brush fire, and it wasn’t stopping. we panicked a little and dropped a wipe over it to stem the flow; a wipe with some cleaning agents on that newly circumcised, probably really sensitive area.yikes. thank goodness he’s not going to remember any of this.

sleep is not overrated: everyone says “sleep when you can”, which sounds great, in theory. in practice, however, it’s much more difficult, especially in the beginning. first of all, the timing of everything is misleading. when they say “feed every two hours”, the don’t mean feed, wait 2 hours, then feed again. the clock starts when he starts feeding. so if he starts at noon, nurses for 30 mins, then takes 15-30 minutes, he goes down for an hour and is back up feeding at two. and that’s if everything goes according to plan. if he feeds longer, or doesn’t go to sleep quickly, there is even less time. on top of that, especially in the beginning, every sound he made woke us up, so that made for even less sleep. it’s also just hard to break the routine of sleeping at night, even though we know we aren’t going to sleep the whole night through, even if just to get up to feed him. so in that moment of downtime during the afternoon, the tendency is to accomplish something, not sleep. which then means later on, when he’s fussing and won’t sleep, neither will you. by the end of the night we just want to sleep, which we finally do, but then get up 3-4 hours later to feed again. rinse, repeat. i think by the end of the week, though, we are getting better at this. i’m trying to take care of him for parts of the day when he’s fussing so kerri can sleep, but the boys lungs are strong, and though he’s generally pretty content, when he does cry, no sleep is to be had. come on, sleeping through the night!

everything happens really, really fast: it’s already been a week, and there was so much packed in to that week that even if i tried to recount it all, i know i would miss half of it. added to that the lack of concentration caused by the lack of sleep, and even more things slip through the crack. two weeks ago we were sitting on the couch watching television. now there is another life in the house. granted, we had 9 months to prep. but it’s different when it actually happens, and it seems like it happened so quickly. the thoughts of things we wanted to do before he was born are now “i wish we had done…”  fortunately, there aren’t many of those. we’ve done a lot with the time we had, and we were really ready for this. but even being ready doesn’t slow things down. even with all of the tips from family and friends, there is still so much you can’t know and can’t prepare for until he actually shows up, so you’re just so frantically trying to react to and handle those thousand other things that by the time you look up, you don’t really know where the time has gone. now my two weeks off are done, and i have to go back to work next week. i feel like i should have spent more time doing one thing or another, but i don’t think any amount of time would have given me all the opportunities i wanted to capture and enjoy every moment, so i’ll be happy with the ones i did have (and can remember).

it’s all only as scary as you make it: becoming a first time parent is a scary thing. the classes we took and all of the literature we’ve read did a lot for getting us some basic preparation, but also gave us a lot to be fearful of. from all of the things that could go wrong in the womb, to the scary birth stuff, SIDS, choking, allergies, and all of the intricate details of schedules, temperature, sleep, and feeding. don’t let the baby get too hot, too cold, too hungry, too full, too tired, too stimulated, too this, too that. don’t let them cry, but don’t hold them too long so that they sleep in your arms. there is so much to do and to not do, and it seems like such a fine line between the two. it’s overwhelming at first, and i think that’s ok. it made us more sensitive to the little stuff, and aware of things we might otherwise not have been tuned to. and after a week, it’s not as scary as it was before he was here. sure, i still wake up with a lot of different sounds, but we no longer run to the crib. we kind of wait and see if the fussing becomes a crying, or if the noise was just him rolling over. it’s about turning the fear that was instilled in us to an awareness of things to look for, and then settling in to the role of parent and protector without letting the responsibility of it all, and the fear itself, overwhelm to the point where it’s not an amazing, enjoyable experience.

i’ve been working on this entry for a few days. between the lack of sleep, the lack of motivation, and all things being about him, it’s taken me this long to even get to this point, so i will probably wrap it up. but i think it’s a good lesson on how to approach it all in general. things will get done when they get done. right now, the focus needs to be and should be on him, and on getting mom enough rest, and working on getting the routine in place so that when i go back to work, it’s not going to be as traumatic as it would be otherwise. his days are nights and his nights are days, and we’ve been keeping him awake way too long. but we’re figuring it out, and just like the persistence necessary to finish this post, we’ll learn, and work on our routines, and eventually, the light at the end of the tunnel will be a happy baby, moderately rested parents, a little less fear, and more time to take in everything we can as best we can.

day 3 of this amazing adventure.

mitchell is doing really well. already latching, passed the hearing test, peed on dad, and is going all the things a little fella should do, including crying to let us know he’s hungry/angry/lonely/bored. the trick is figuring out which one is which, but we’re learning and, being my boy, he’s (not really) patient. kerri is doing an amazing job, and i’m really lucky to have such a natural mother as my wife, otherwise i would be more lost than i already feel! the hospital, doctors, nurse, and other staff are all amazing, and the whole experience (even with all the scary stuff going on in hospitals with the flu and everything) has been so supportive that it’s allowed us to work our way in to this life transition. i can’t wait to go home so that our friends and family can spend some time with him (as long as they all have their flu shots!) and to dress him up in his halloween outfits (all 10 of them…that’s mom, not me). pictures for sure to follow!

this is right before we got scolded for violating the 2 visitor rule in the hospital. the 6 people on the left were all waiting to see him (and that wasn’t even everyone that was there)…

he’s a little past his due date, but i think he’s just giving them time to get their season on track…

the one good thing about junior not being here yet is that it gives me more opportunities to work with the maternity shots. sure, that’s great for me. for kerri, um, not so much. actually, we’re both pretty anxious at this point. we’re a few days past his due date, and there are no signs that he is even really thinking about coming out to meet us.

in any case, here is another batch of shots from last week!