With Apologies and Loads of Cuteness!

Sania has been a tremendously fun baby lately, so we've all been hanging out, working on a schedule, trying to catch some sleep (mostly K) and chronicling her staggering ability to ingest breastmilk. She's something else.

Some status reports, for fellow parents, grandparents and other folks who track the baby-check-in items:

Nursing: Like a champ. She hits the K-tap every two hours, three if her mom's lucky, and she makes cute little noises while she eats as if she couldn't possibly have enough of this delicious stuff.

Sleeping: She naps well. Spending her time in utero around Reid probably prepared her for a level of background noise equivalent to an airport or construction site. At night, we're not exactly living the life of Reilly, but her longest stretch of night sleep is about four hours. Not bad for 10 days old.

Big Strong Muscles: She holds her head up and makes this face like, 'what is supporting my head?' It's a riot.

Plumbing: Reid had some reflux when he was young, though I don't remember exactly when it came on. Sania has maybe burped up a little breast milk twice, so vomiting and reflux don't appear --yet-- to be an issue. She goes through the requisite number of diapers and everything seems to be working. She has bowel movements like a musket-blast, so watch out.

Cute: Totally. Check it out.

Sania, Reid, and the Mad Blogger Revealed

A nice weekend of hanging out with friends and family, visiting with folks and handing around the lovely Ms. Sania to everyone willing to hold her and gaze upon her splendor. Reid is getting more acquainted to the idea of having a little sister around. He frequently asks Sania if she's okay, checks on her when she cries in the Pack and Play, and tells her, 'no worry, sister, big brother here.'

And of course, he loves a chance to ham it up for the cameras.



And this whole time, you thought my dad was writing the blog? Reid just likes writing in the third person, like French Royalty.

Sleep, Eat, Poop, Repeat

Sania has settled into a comfortable routine. Her days and nights are a little confused, but we're harnessing the power of visiting friends and relatives to turn her nocturnal reversal on its ear and force her to be awake and receive guests during the daylight hours, ensuring that she'll eventually get this whole daytime/nightime business straightened out.

I'm sure I could bore you with our schedule, but suffice it to say, K and the baby are doing really well (knock on wood) with the breastfeeding, even if the baby has a tendency to eat herself full then end up looking like the image below.

Reid has had some funny conversations with K about the breastfeeding. Nothing has thrown him like the rapidly-decaying umbilical cord on her stomach. But the other day, K was settling in to feed the baby and Reid asked what she was doing. She explained that the baby gets milk from mommy, and Reid looked at where Sania was getting ready to eat and said, "From your eyeball?"

Later, during what amounts to the same conversation, the body part Reid named in reference to the breast was elbow.

I have to figure out what Reid is learning the names of body parts. Something is off somewhere.

Anyhow, look for some big changes on the blog in the next week or so.

A Moment's Peace

Sisterhood and Small Faces

As I write this, Sania is in the other room, sleeping soundly. And that means K is sleeping somewhere, too.

The nights since Sania came home haven't been terrible, but then again, your faithful correspondent doesn't lactate. Sania has her days and nights a little confused. Actually, what she has them shifted slightly. Her 'night' seems to start around 6 am, after a marathon all-night session of feeding on a normal newborn daytime schedule of every two hours or so. This does not amuse Sania's mother. I wake up, mumble things, promise to bear the next child and fall back to sleep. At least once on each of the last two nights, I have awaken to offer moral support, burp the baby, get her back to sleep, but this is really K's show.

So, at 6 or so, Sania is ready to bunk down for the night, taking one of her longest sleeps at this point. So does her mom.

Reid has been doing really well with the sister. He asked abut her as soon as I picked him up today at his daycare. When she cries, he says, "It's okay sister, I'm here," and gives her a kiss. Many of our friends and relatives have followed the reliable but new-age-y advice to bring Reid a gift when showing up with something for the new little one. As a result, Reid thinks having a sister is the greatest thing that has happened to him since the first time he saw "Toy Story."

More photos below. Enjoy.

Radio Silence

Sorry to go radio silent on everybody there. We've had a lot going on.

Little Sania came home yesterday to much fanfare. K's parents Grammie and Pawpaw were still in attendance, and they brought Reid to the hospital to help bring home his new baby sister. We rehearsed our new roles as a family of four in a car-ride from the hospital: Dad driving, mom in the shotgun seat, Reid in his new booster seat behind daddy and Sania in the slightly-worn infant seat Reid used until his long legs forced us to move him up to the convertible seat. It wasn't quiet for long, as Reid kept lunging over to see if the baby was okay. She was fine. Asleep actually.

Sleep-wise, Sania is a pretty good sleeper in some ways. She seems to sleep through a lot, including general ambient noise, Reid's Buzz-and-Woody imaginary game-play, Pawpaw's television-watching, daddy's phone-jabbering and just about everything else. Unfortunately, the only thing she can't sleep through is an empty stomach. And she seems to find feeding most effective late at night.

K is so-far claiming success on the breast-feeding front. This is good for me because, unlike last time, the only person who can feed Sania is her. Reid had early problems with breastfeeding and a bad case of jaundice which made us advance a bottle-feeding regimen of pumped breast milk, and which unfortunately democratized the parent-who-feeds system. All I do now is burp her.

Speaking of jaundice, she had a touch of it, but we seem to be out of the woods. Her bilirubin, for folks in the know, was 7 something in the hospital on Tuesday, 14 in the doctor's office yesterday, and 13 today, so it's now going in the right direction.

More soon, with pictures.

Sania Update

We're hoping to bring little Sania home from the hospital tomorrow, as she was born Sunday. A big birthday-hello to Reid and Sania's Aunt Candy and our friend Larry all celebrated their birthday's on April 16th.

We had a nice big feast of kabobs and shish tawook tonight at the hospital, and then Reid had to be bribed to come home because the hospital is the new super-fun-place.

Daddy is in charge of running Reid interference, with able assistance from Grammie and Paw-Paw, and things are going as well as could be expected, but I think we'll all be happy to be back together under one roof.

Thanks for everybody's good wishes. We're very excited for the new little addition. Here's the first family portrait.

Presenting...

Setting what I'm sure will be a life-long policy of not following anyone else's timeline, her mother and I are proud to present Sania Leigh Henderson Rizk.





Sania was born today, Sunday, April 16, 2006, at 4:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 8 ounces and was 20 and 3/4 inches long.