Oh, right, you want to hear about the baby.

I have Meredith snoozing, sprawled out like a frat boy, in one corner of my lap and the laptop dangling off my other knee to write this - I hope you all appreciate my sacrifices to bring you baby updates.

I can't help it. This one makes me laugh every time.

Other than the whole thrush/breastfeeding/recovering from the delivery from h-e-double-hockey-sticks thing, life with Meredith has been pretty good. If you catch her cries right away, she'll usually calm down fairly quickly, the major exception being what we've dubbed Angry Hour. AH takes place usually between 4-7 pm and involves a hungry, gassy, inconsolable baby who alternately wants to be held and pushes us away with surprisingly strong little hands. Even at night, she's not too terrible, waking up between every 1.5-3 hours and wanting to be fed and changed and snuggled: I'm getting good at sleeping sitting upright, holding her in the crook of my arms propped up on the Boppy pillow.

Whuuuuuh? You mean someday I'm going to have to do chores?

The wee digestive tract seems to be in good working order: Mer farts and burps like a trucker (we're so proud), has lots of wet diapers, and saves up the dirty diapers for about every 24-36 hours, when the Crack Of Doom goes off BIG time. In that case, we just hang out with her at the changing table for 15-20 minutes until it's all over, in order to avoid a blowout on the couch. Since we moved to alternating between pumped milk, Similac Organic, and Similac Sensitive for feedings, she's had far fewer spit-ups, although I have gotten gakked on pretty good a few times. She's still on Diflucan, which doesn't seem to upset her poor tummy nearly as much now, although she tries to spit it back out at me at each dosing. She doesn't mind wet diapers, unless it happens while she's eating, but dirty diapers MUST BE CHANGED SOON.

The little maestro tries to 'conduct' diaper changes.

I'm still pumping 3-5 times a day (I need to pump at night but it's too hard to stay awake!), although I don't know how well I'll be able to do that once I'm home alone with her, since she prefers to be held as much as possible. But, any breast milk I can give her is a good thing, I keep reminding myself.

Note the cat tush horning in on the photo.

So far as personality goes, Meredith loves being talked to and held. When awake, she's very interactive, and cuddly when asleep. I need to figure out the Moby wrap so I can cart her around with me during the day when I'm home alone and maybe get more done than just surfing the net on my iPhone and watching (yuck) daytime TV. She always has at least one hand up by her face, just like she did in utero, and manages to get that way even when swaddled snug as a bug in a rug. When left unswaddled, she does the frat boy/Homer Simpson sprawl, as seen below.

Daddy is a good pillow.

Mer's repertoire of noises is legion, involving snuffles, grunts, sighs, squeaks, and squeals that we have a hard time distinguishing from the cats' mews at times. We can't quite differentiate all of her cries yet, but there's starting to be more differences between happy and sad sounds. When I'm sleeping, I still tend to wake up to most of her sounds (she sleeps in a pack-n-play next to me) but I'm getting better at realizing which are her dreaming/shifting, and which are her needing something. Dave tends to sleep through all but the most indignant of cries, but if I need him to grab me something he does so right away. I honestly couldn't ask for a more supportive husband and father of our child. When she's really inconsolable, he's the best at getting her calmed down using a combo of Happiest Baby on the Block techniques and his own brand of silliness.

I am concerned with the current lack of pacifier in my mouth.
Please as to be rectifying the situation.

Well, the wee bairn (Thorberta, Merberta, Meri, Mer, Munkin, Punkin, or Hunnybun, depending on who you talk to) is stirring and I think I smell a wet diaper, so I'll sign off for now. We're so in love with our little miss, and so grateful for all of your love and support. She's one lucky little gal.