This little one has been in our lives for two weeks and it simultaneously feels like he was just born yesterday and like so much has happened since he was born. Both are true, in a way. He has met all his grandparents and even all his great grandparents, plus my sister, Joey’s brother and this past weekend, he got to meet the whole King crew, including his best friend Henry! These moments are so sweet.

Josh asked us what’s been the hardest part of having a new baby and we guiltily answered “nothing?” I mean, waking up in the middle of the night to change or feed him isn’t always easy and eating with one hand maybe isn’t ideal but at the same time, it really is. Nothing about this little baby feel like an inconvenience to me. I am so happy to cater to his every need.

Breastfeeding has already been such a journey. The good part about starting out on a “three-part feeding system” (supplemental milk, breastfeeding, pumping) is that it can only get easier from there. We dropped the SNS at the beginning of last week. It was taking over an hour to feed him, plus I was pumping out a lot, so I knew he could just get what he needed from me. We were following up with a bottle just to make sure he was eating enough but he started spitting up EVERY TIME, which was alarming. We had a follow up appointment with the lactation consultant last Tuesday where they were able to weigh him, let me feed him, then weigh him again so we would know exactly how much he was getting from me (cool!) and yeah, we were way over feeding him with the bottle. We are finally finally just at breastfeeding with a nipple shield but I know we’ll wean ourselves off that too. It’s just a matter of time. Whew! So that’s that.

My parents returned our dog last weekend and he was pretty riled up for the first couple of days — he would not leave Joey alone! — but he seems pretty disinterested in Dempsey and I’m more than okay with that! We’ve let him give him some sniffs and he’s licked a foot or two, but that’s about as close as I’m comfortable with. My fear was that the baby would be crying in the middle of the night and the dog would go crazy barking. OR, that the dog would be barking and wake the baby up, but neither sounds seems to bother the other. A miracle!

Recovery-wise, I’ve been feeling great! Maybe I had it easy or maybe I was so over prepared for postpartum recovery that I had it built up to be worse in my head. Either way, I’ve honestly barely felt any pain — sitting was semi-uncomfortable for a few days — and I am so so thankful! I’ve been able to take some family walks with Dempsey in the stroller and Andi on his leash and it’s felt so good to walk around. I will mention that hormonally, I’m definitely still a bit all over the place. Most of the time, I feel so so happy but I’ve also balled over Chrissy Teigan’s personal essay, teared up watching The Way I See It (I miss Obama so much!) and felt really emotional about Joey returning to work (even though he’ll be working from home, it won’t be as blissful as the past 13 days of baby cuddles, Halloween movie watching, family visits and saying to each other “we made this!”).

In other news, Dempsey spent his first Halloween meeting friends, trick-or-treating at his Grandma Lori’s and hanging out with his Grandma and Grandpa Dorsey. Our friends Troy and Kenzie passed along some of their boys’ clothes, which included both a newborn pumpkin onesie and a newborn mummy onesie. We figured he’d dirty one of them at some point, but both costumes actually made it safely through the day. I ordered Joey and I some mummy face masks and a mummy bandana for Andi, so we could all match. Dempsey was obviously still the cutest 🙂

Everyone keeps asking if we’ve been reading and/or singing to him and uh… we’ve been watching scary movies and The Great British Bake Off with him. Is that the same?? Okay, so that’s one thing to get better about. Mostly we just hold him and watch him sleep and tell him and each other how much we love him. Maybe not the most productive way to spend time, but certainly the best way 🙂

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