The boy's magic bilirubin number, reflecting the ebb and flow in his body of tiny expired red blood cells, has begun to recede. His skin tone is gradually shifting from the buttery bread crust golden to a scrubby clean pink. Hoorah!

This weekend, father yours truly gets to take over. Owing to my tragid lack of milk ducts, however, I will only be able to serve in an accessory capacity to my boy's dining experience. The sommelier, so to speak. But I'd do anything just to watch him smile and scrunch his face up.

I never before thought about the experience of parenting in this way. I imagined it would change everything, and that is surely so. But the sheer happiness of seeing this little creature partly of my own design is almost overwhelming. I said today to a friend who preceeded me in fatherhood by a half-decade: Seeing this boy, holding this child, feeling the warmth of his wee little bit of skin on my cheek or chest as he falls asleep is like swallowing a dose of sunshine. I'm fit to burst, and all this light and beauty is filling me to the brim.

I'm hoping to engineer another slide show of baby-images (what did we do before digital cameras?) for easy access this weekend. We'll just see if I can keep the number of pix below 100.