What’s Amara Doing?

No I am not just talking about the emotional pain of watching your child go through a painful time (see right) or the pain of child birth (talk to my wife), I mean day in, day out, physical torture.

Here are some examples:

Bathing: ceramic tiles are not soft and fluffy to kneel on every day for 30 minutes (we got a padded mat today. Yay!).

Carrying: Amara is heavy and not getting any lighter. Sometimes I think my arm is going to fall off, but normally I just get burning shoulder muscles (’cause she really likes to look around at the world over my shoulder and often cries if she does not get her way!)

Sleeping: it’s an ordeal to get her to sleep at the best of times, sometimes you just need to let Amara sleep on you which results in being hot and sweaty, cramped in an uncomfortable position (so that she is in a comfortable one) and if you are lucky enough to be so tired that you must sleep along with her and try putting up your feet on the nearby chair, you wake up with sore heals/ankles.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all pain and suffering, sometimes (see left) it’s even worth it

Mark Pilgram is my new parenting hero.

Amara is proving to be a demanding child and with no other support people to help Kate I have decided to go on parental leave. My last work day before that happens is May 11.

That’s right. Amara is 4 weeks old today which, because she was born in February means that she is also 1 month old. Assuming she moves out on her 18th birthday, there are only 215 more months left. Here’s to hoping it gets easier.

It has been a long couple of days. Kate and I have been without any visitors since Friday morning, which means there is no one helping us with either house or baby stuff. Luckily, I think we are starting to get this parent thing down. We are still having some issues with getting her on a good sleep schedule, but we got a new Baby Whisperer book that promises to solve all our problems.

Fun time seems to be working out as you can see from the picture to the left and the other ones in the gallery. Here she shows her amazingly good head control. If you click through to the gallery and check out the pictures I just added from week 3 and 4 you will find some post bath pictures and one from a visit from Karen, Ken and Jane where Karen is reluctantly holding the baby. I don’t think either Karen or Amara look too freaked out. The freaked out in ducky suit picture is there to show that she is not calm all the time. I just happened to be trying to take pictures of her when she decided to be unhappy. Thankfully it doesn’t usually take us long to calm her down when she gets like this.

As of today, Amara is 1 week old. Yay! We made it through the first week.

I am sure that some people who know me are wondering why there aren’t more pictures uploaded. They probably think that I have taken more and just not gotten round to posting them. In actuallity I am finding it a bit hard to hold Amara and take pictures of her at the same time. The image on the left is one from a series which I took while holding Amara. It is really hard to get far enough away from her to get an in focus picture while she is in your lap. Check out the rest of that series and a couple more pictures from today in the Week 2 photo gallery.

Aside from finding it hard to take pictures and care of Amara at the same time it is also hard to find creative situations so that she does not look the same in every picture. To accomplish that I need to catch her when she is awake which I can’t always do, because things need to get done around the house besides taking pictures.

Don’t there won’t be any shortage of photos, but they just won’t be as often as you might have thought.

Generally the first week went rather well. I think we are getting into a rhythm and are starting to know Amara’s schedule. I never thought I would be so knowlegeable about someone else’s bodily functions. She seems to be generally very happy. She has a bit of a fussy time in the evening but that is easily settled by walking with her. I think the hardest part is her marathon feedings. Sometimes she just eats and eats. As I write this she has just finished a 1.5 hour feed… crazy. I am not sure where it all goes… ok I have seen where it goes and changed those diapers innumerable times (at some point I need to post about cloth vs disposable diapers; short answer is cloth wins hands down).

I have to wrap this up. Happy 1 week birthday Amara. I look forward to getting to know you and who you grow up to be.

Hello. This blog is here to chronicle the life of my 6 day old daughter Amara Rhiannon. Amara was born on Feb 18, 2007 at 12:22pm EST in Nepean Ontario (a suburb of the capital of Canada, for those of you not aware). She was 8lb 12oz and 22in long.

The intent is that this will be a place to record the goings on in her life and you should expect to see pictures, videos and what are hopefully amusing stories.

To get you started wander on over to Amara’s picture gallery.