sooo… here we are.

5 weeks out, and not a lot to say.  Cora has been sleeping, eating, and pooping, as all newborns do.  Occasionally we get a smile out of her, and she seems to be acting a little more “awake”, holding her head up some, etc, but for the most part, she is still in the sleep/eat cycle and growing like a weed.  I more or less sit around and watch her go through these cycles, and try to get things done in between… cooking, reading, laundry, re-discovering daytime television (Oprah!  Ellen!  Martha!  Regis!)…

We are gearing up for thanksgiving, divvying up the recipes– I am most excited about this cream-corn-casserole-concoction that Henry’s mother makes and which my mother got the recipe for last year when we were in Michigan for the holiday.  We have a running joke in our family that all good things in life start with the letter C… cokes, cookies, candy, cake, caramel corn, coffee, caramel… the list is extensive… and we will probably have to add this one to it.

And that’s about the sum of it.  I’m sure there’s more in the brain-pan than that, but it’s going to have to wait.

3 weeks and counting.

sorry for the graininess, but this picture was too funny to pass up.  Henry took it with his phone…

By way of catching people up, things are going well:  I have healed up nicely and actually was in the mood for Exercise today (which happened only about twice a year anyway prior to getting pregnant) and the weather is exquisite (highly unusual for Oregon in November).  Cora is a perfect newborn– gaining weight like a champ, breastfeeding like her life depends on it (huh. I guess it actually does.), and sleeping a LOT.  Like, so much that I’ve twice consulted Dr. Sears (author of a great owners manual for new babies) to find out if it’s normal.  It is.  I’m just paranoid.

Henry (ahem: that’s Dr. Henry Nelson to you) has started and is liking his job, finally. He’s been treading water for the last month at this alternate facility while all the paperwork and building permits and etc, etc got finished up for the facility he’s actually going to be working at.  In short, it is a small (i.e. 15-bed) inpatient facility that is transitioning brittle, chronically mentally ill patients from the State Hospital out into the community.  These folks are more or less considered a throw-away population and are sometimes referred to as “unrestorable,” so he has his work cut out for him.  But, he likes a challenge (or thinks he does anyway)… in any case, he is doing well and has taken to fatherhood like a fish to water (or is it a duck?).

And that’s about it.  The house is slowly getting unpacked, and hopefully I’ll have more to say in the next week or two.