Thanks to everyone whos written in! Noé and mom are doing just fine. Theyre spending a second night in hospital, along with Kanakos mom, while I spend a last quiet night at home with Kimi before the maelstrom hits. Sadly, owing to the fact that Im a blathering idiot, I forgot the camera in the hospital, so youll have to wait another few hours to see a tiny percentage of the approximately 735,309 million photos Ive taken of the kid so far... So no photos tonight, but Im technically a writer so maybe Ill just tell you: We were primed for a rough ride: the 33-hour, no-anaesthesia gothic drama of a birth Kimi put us through a couple of years ago gave birthing a bad name in this household. As it turns out, this was nothing like it: a surprisingly calm, almost relaxed 11-hour affair, about half of it epidural-assisted. About 20 minutes before the pushing started, Kanako and I were calmly chatting about the latest revelations in the Rob Ford family-of-scandals, in between remarking how damn weird the whole experience of painless labour is. Noé finally popped out at 2:07 p.m. on Wednesday, and weighed in at a pretty hefty 3 kg. 650 grams - too big a baby considering how tiny mom is. Hes a totally different kind of east-west scramble than Kimi was: whereas his sister has giant round Western eyes in a face thats totally Japanese otherwise, Noé has these little slanty things slapped right under a big Western brow-ridge and right over a big fat Western nose. I think the kid looks good but then some people have - gasp - questioned my impartiality on that score. The really positive thing is that he barely cried at all during his first 24 hours. I know I shouldnt read too much into that, but part of me REALLY wants to take that as some sort of omen for the weeks to come. Mostly he sleeps, with long happy breaks from snoozing spent on Kanakos breast. Kimis visited him both yesterday and today, and seems to be taking the whole thing quite well. This is the first time in her life she sleeps in a different place than her mother, so I expected that part to be harder. But no. She cried a bit last night before falling asleep in her grandmas arms last night, and tonight barely at all. Theres no telling how shell react when mom comes home and brings her little rival with her, and REALLY no telling how shell react when it dawns on her that the little critter is staying. But hey, I guess all older sibs have to face that particular set of demons. So far so good. Were glad people seem to like the name. Its sort of an impossible task, really, picking out a name thats both recognizably Spanish but also pronounceable and name-like in Japanese as well as French, Italian and English. Kanako had the same task last time and I think she did pretty well at it - Kimi sounds namey enough a lot of people dont even suspect its a classic Japanese girls name. Im told in Japanese Noé passes - if not quite for a name - then for something similarly name like. Probably its English where itll work worse - Im sort of dreading both the obvious mispronunciations - neither No nor No Way are especially cute, are they - but then that kind of thing builds character. (Or so I tell myself...) Personally I liked the name more and more the more I looked into it. Everybody knows about the Ark, and thats nice and all, but how many people know Noé invented both wine and the practice of drinking way too much of it? Even better, he invented Moderate Drinking, as after getting chewed out by the almighty for drunkenness (youd think being the FIRST human being to drink would be some kind of an excuse for a bit of exploratory excess) - Noé never drank to excess again. See, the guys a role model! Plus anyone who lives to the age of 950 must be doing something right... But I digress. Mom and prophet - erm, baby - are both doing great. About a million pictures tomorrow, promise.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 02:38:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015