The baby chronicles #4: Never let me go

Weeks old: 4
I like: Sleeping on mummy, boobs (no surprise),being in my bouncer… for about 10 minutes
Mummy is learning: Not to look in the mirror, to hold me upright after I have eaten

Tomorrow Little O will be a whole month old and miraculously we have not dropped or drowned him or let him get stolen by gypsies. I am secretly somewhat proud of this.

We have spent the last week settling into our new home and doing some admin. We will be taking Little O on his first big holiday a month from now so he can meet his South African family members so I had to apply for a passport for him. Amazingly baby passports are valid for 5 years. Little O already doesn’t look that much like his passport photo and it’s only a couple of weeks old.

He is becoming more alert by the day but also more demanding. This has manifested itself in him not wanting to be put down… ever. This means I spend pretty much all my time with Little O in my arms both night and day. Whether he is awake or asleep he just wants to be cuddled. Apparently this  is normal for a newborn as they experience something referred to as the “fourth trimester”. It is a huge transition from being in the warm, dark, noisy womb to being in the big, bright, unpredictable outside world and what makes them feel safe is cuddling up with mummy (and very occasionally daddy for about 10 minutes at a time). While I love snuggling up close with Little O it can make everyday life activities challenging and it makes sleeping especially challenging for all three of us. And mummy and daddy are very tired.

I realised just how much the sleep-deprivation was starting to get to me when I spotted myself in the mirror in Primark the other day. I think the look of new mother and hermit-who-lives-in-a-cave are not that different from each other. On Sunday we took Little O to meet his great aunt and uncle and cousin and I made sure I had five minutes to actually put some make-up on and create the illusion that I don’t spend large parts of the night staring at my baby and thinking, “I have no idea what you want.” At the moment he is too small to give me any kind of positive communication like smiling, laughing or cuddling back. It’s a little like working for a dictator, whose language you don’t speak and who is always slightly dissatisfied with the service but fortunately cute enough to make it all forgivable in the cold light of day.

Proof that with a little bit of effort I still look half human

Little O’s great aunt and uncle kindly bought us a bouncer, which he actually doesn’t mind spending ten minutes at a time in. Just long enough for me to at least eat my breakfast or go for a wee. Bless him, I don’t think he knows what is going on but he seems to quite like it.

Finally we’ve been trying to figure out who Little O looks like. There are lots of theories. I think he looks like my brother, after whom he is partly named. I recently unearthed this picture of him with my Granny when he was only a few months old. I think I have proved myself right, what do you guys think? Little O is on the left and my brother is on the right.