Homecoming

We're home! We came here last evening after dinner. Pete, as expected, screamed up a storm as we took him out to the car for the first time. He tends to cry enthusiastically every time room-temperature air hits his skin (meaning every diaper change, basically), so we knew that would happen when he first met winter. But the movement of the car calmed him down right away, from full-throated protest to mellowness in about ten blocks.

The cats freaked out a little when we came home. Pretty soon, however, Giddy decided that his love of the comforter on the bed trumped his anxiety about the new visitor, and he settled down there while Pete was nursing. Kirby stayed skittish for longer, but he ended up settling nicely, sleeping at the end of the bed with all of us most of the night. We've tried to encourage Kirby to enjoy the fact that he's no longer the smallest member of the family; he outweighs Pete by about four pounds. At one point, we did have all five of us sharing the bed at once.

And Pete has been great. He wanted to be fed a lot during the day and evening yesterday, and the payoff came when he slept really well the first night, including a lovely stretch from four to eight a.m. curled up on my chest. So the transition home is thus far a success, and we now commence the first day home, as well as the first full day without nurses and grandparents to help on demand.

Other baby notes:

* He now goes by Sweet Potato, or occasionally Pete Potato, in addition to Peter, Petey, Petester, Pip, Pipster, Piparoon, etc. We have discovered that baby nicknames multiply rapidly when Pete cries and we are trying to think of things to say to him.

* His yawns and sneezes are especially cute. Sneezing is not a sign of sickness for a newborn, so we can enjoy the funny look of it without worry. He occasionally yawns and sneezes simultaneously. Hottt.

* We had heard from other parents that their bodies somehow adjusted immediately to sensing the position of their baby when sleeping so there was no danger of rolling onto or otherwise harming the baby. This is amazingly true. When Pete was three hours old, watching him from six feet away caused unbearable anxiety--aah! he's moving! what do we do! aah! he's not moving! what do we do!--but putting him on my lap in the stupid hospital daddy recliner felt completely secure.