Right now I am sitting in the baby-rocking glider next to my son's crib. I'm sorry I never wrote more about the hurricane. The entire thing made me want to cry at one point, so beleagured was our little clan. We had no hot water or electricity, and morale was badly slipping, returning to work was annoying because I was leaving behind the baby and K to fend for themselves in the light-less, air conditioner-free home.

The power went out Thursday night at around 11, and returning after Noon on the following Tuesday. Since then, things have returned mostly to normal.

The following two weeks were my last ones at work before taking a month off to care for Reid, and I haven't written much because of that. But now I am home. This will be the longest sustained period of time that I have ever not gone to a job somewhere. (I am careful to not refer to this period at home as "not work," because I knew before and was reminded after only my first day that this, very much is work.)

The first day was hard but rewarding. Reid is at an amazing time right now. He is not laughing quite yet, but he is experience a new range of sounds of pleasure, especially when he is under his mobile. The toy is a specifically designed arrangement of seemingly random shapes and little accessory shapes, all slowly rotating and colored with a lot of primary tones and delicious black-white spirals that apparently stimulate little kids like crazy.

Beneath the mobile, for a solid 40 minutes sometimes, he smiles and kicks and makes sounds of amazement. He can't explain, but not for lack of trying, what this is like. He makes long, inquisitive-sounding exclamations, and he waves his arms joyously. It is a remarkably peaceful time.

The rest of the time is not so peaceful.

It will be hard for me to write (and hard for me to do anything that isn't baby-care related) for the time I am home. I've never cared for anyone else's baby, but our baby appears to be most comfortable when he is being held by a parent. I'm certain this is my fault, as K reminded me relentlessly, because I held him so much when we first brought him home. He was jaundiced, and badly fatigued, and you could hold him and wander around the house, or put him down on a handy piece of furniture and do something then return to holding him with no penalty. Now the holder must interact, stimulate, and oftentimes march around the house or suffer a torrent of shouting. Reid's lungs are clearly fully developed and no physician needs to inform us of that.

So this is a lot of work, as I always knew it would be. Reid's moods do change on a dime, and he seems to be eating more and more. K and I have talked about when the time will come for us to let her end her career for now as a milk machine and return to the world of people not hooked up to elaborate suction devices. While the health benefits of breastfeeding are myriad, it has truthfully not been the easiest thing in the world. Reid never suffered of course (he was, at his last checkup about 2 and a half weeks ago in the 88th percentile for weight, with similarly high marks for height and head circumference), but at times I felt that it was hard on K, because he sometimes fussed, and seemed to reject the breast. We relied a lot on the breast pump at night, but he normally, after some adjustments, ate at the breast by day.

Now that K's back at work, there are no working breasts in the house during the day. It's bottle all day long, and Reid seems fine with it. He breastfed last night when K got home several times, and ate well. But we still may need to see how the breastfeeding comes out in the end.

I will try to report more about this time at home as much as I can. Wish me luck. And lookout for more pictures soon.