the nursery

When my parents brought us all home from the hospital last week, my father took a panorama of the nursery, with our new little family. We can't remember how to post panoramas on the blog, so you'll have to click here.

(We're a little distorted; you'll have to squint and be understanding.)

birthdays

My birthday was on Tuesday.

There are certain things I've always thought would be fun to do on my birthday, given its time of year. Like, go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Or have a snow day (this was something I really longed for as a child).

This year my birthday was on Mardi Gras, and it snowed. But I didn't care. Nothing really mattered, actually, because I got an early birthday present:

Please meet Eamon Fletcher Wall. Born February 13 at 1:51pm.

7lbs 11 oz and 22 inches long.

Christopher has promised to write up the birth story, which I hope to share when it's ready. In the meantime we are at home, getting to know little Eamon, resting and recovering.

imagining Smudge

My due date is rapidly approaching, and I have a feeling that it will come and go without Smudge's arrival. He can come any time in February, and today is only the 10th, so I should learn to be patient.

While we wait - and fine tune the nursery - I find myself insanely curious about what he looks like. I think the one guarantee is that he will have fair skin, since Christopher and I both have an abundance of British genes. But Christopher was a tow head (as was my father), while I had brown hair and my mother was born with jet black hair. And Christopher's beard is red and I have three red-headed cousins. Of course, he could look like anyone - his parents or grandparents, various relatives. There's just no way to predict that.

This is newborn Christopher with his hunky grandfather.
Check out those enormous baby feet!

Recently we realized that we are each imagining Smudge as being a tiny version of ourselves. Christopher was talking about his blond son; I know that he will have dark hair.

Here I am at about 3 days old.

I mentioned this to my midwife, who laughed and said that she can tell me what the baby will look like: an old man. Which is true. Looking at these images of ourselves as newborns, it's clear our appearance changed quite a lot pretty quickly. I wouldn't match either of these babies with photos of us just a few months later.

But still, it would be nice to meet (and see) Smudge!