As I hope those of you who read this regularly (ie family and friends) know, we have been blessed with the arrival of our now five week-old son, Amotai. He is a delight.
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| Amotai, aka Captain Cute |
Every now and then, despite the fact that he dominates our lives, I have a 'gosh, we have a child!' moment, and have to pinch myself. For all we've seen and done, this is by far the biggest thing that has happened to us.
I also have to pinch myself sometimes about how well it's going. You get a lot of people telling you how tough it is being new parents. If we had a dollar for every time someone told us we're not going to get a lot of sleep, we could have hired a wet nurse to ensure that we did.
Thankfully, Amotai is a good sleeper. He's got what they call good state control - which means he's pretty good at switching to sleep state. Many babies are not and I have a massive amount of sympathy for those parents. We feel very, very lucky. Touch wood, throw a horseshoe, cross our fingers and toes it continues. Not looking forward to his first illness, or teething.
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| It's not all fun and games. |
Amotai is a constant source of amazement. There's the speed at which he is growing - he's packed on 1.5kg since birth, growing from 3.48 to 5kg, and is already too big for most of his newborn stuff. It's a bit sad really, having to pack away some of the lovely things people have given us after a few weeks.
Then there's the mundane things that are so fascinating. Holding him and watching him stare at you like he's trying to memorise your face. Seeing how the bath changes him in moments from hysterically crying over being naked to floating peacefully. Realising he can see you on the other side of the room. Best of all his watching him smile. He started imitating our smiles two weeks ago - last week he started smiling properly. He's also suddenly become interested in his dangly toys - the brightly coloured creatures that hang over his car seat and play gym. It all generates a rather manic excitment that childless people probably find bemusing.
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| Look! HE'S SMILING AT THE DANGLY TIGER! |
There's also the stuff that's not directly about him. Watching Lauren be such a tender, loving mother. Feeling like a good dad as I feed him bottled Mum Milk, as he stares up at me with his big brown eyes.
