2. A Noble Visage

Day 16

I must admit, I love this. Sure, things are often funnier when you're deliriously tired, but come on. You don't have to be running on 4 hours of sleep to think your newborn crying like an orphaned dolphin is entertaining. The eye crossing still makes me laugh sixteen days in, and when she smiles between bouts of wonder and bewilderment, (and rage and betrayal), I think my grin is going to explode off my face and splatter all over her open mouth under a shower of my own tears. Then she'll fart and the stink of boiled eggs melts my heart all over again. It's intense.

As parents, we're giving ourselves an A+. So far, Bill has been responsible for daytime, while I catch up on sleep lost during my night shift. When Noble screams, she quiets almost instantly in his arms. So when she's raging too hard to nurse, Bill will walk her a few paces and bring her back to herself.

Boxing practice

It's mesmerizing watching someone you love, er... adore... treasure... take such tender care of your newborn. I dreaded having to share him; the thought of changing our precious and dynamic duo for anything was impossibly irresponsible to me - but let me tell you. Life, ah, ah, finds a way.

Bill and I have courted family life for many years, talking tactics, baby names and baiting each other into getting pregnant. He's proposed periodically over the years, but I never felt tempted until our boxes were unpacked and we were staring at each other over the kitchen table in a house built for two. Or three. Four max.

I spent a good amount of nap time filing down Noble's claws the first few days. Then I gave up in favor of skin-saving mittens. Mittens, while entirely adorable, functional and at the top of the fashion food chain, eventually start to smell like crusty, regurgitated milk. Today, I broke out the clippers.Note: Abstain from coffee, energy drinks, and placenta smoothies before clipping an infant's nails. You need the hands of a surgeon to perform this task. My one saving grace was keeping her in mittens 'round the clock, resulting in well-hydrated, dispensable skin beneath the cliffs of her razor sharp nails. After trimming all ten talons, I sat back content to do nothing else the rest of the day. It occurs to me now she also has ten angry toenails.
Parenthood.

Please enjoy this super romantic daddy/daughter video.

Music by Mulatu Astatke

Beards.

1. A Noble Endeavor

Here she is, as expertly captured by Katy Taylor at about 30 hours old, gazing at her Uncle Judd.

Happy Birthday to Noble Aquemini Moreno! 

Party animal. Daughter. Avid fan of colostrum.

Her arrival, though highly anticipated, was somewhat unexpected. No longer content to be wedged under the table like so many soiled and crumpled napkins, she broke my water after a little salsa at dinner Monday night. Determined not to spend another meal inside a bag of fluid, a few hours later she encouraged my uterus to start the arduous process of moving her toward the nearest exit.

The timeline went like this: contractions began later that night at 9:15, reminiscent of a hearty series of menstrual cramps, about 6 minutes apart. We arrived at St. David's Downtown Medical Center around 11pm and in the hours following, contractions took on a more sinister nature, reducing me to a kind of caged animal, menaced by delusions, and given less than a minute to recover in between. My enclosure was a dimly lit birthing room with a side bed in a nook where I crashed into a stack of pillows each time a mind-numbing wave seized my lower back. Hypnosis tracks I'd been practicing during pregnancy offered me an hour's distraction from the punishing reality that this was only going to get more intense. By 3:45, the urge to push gave me new perspective on the work to be done, so I refocused my efforts and prepared my nethers for a strain heretofore unrealized...

At 4:55, Noble's crowning was so full of pageantry that every inhale came trumpeting out with more and more raucous force and volume. Calls from the staff to slow down were deliberately disregarded as I sent my daughter barreling through precious tissues to burst out onto the bed at 4:56 am, September 13, 2016.

21 inches of gorgeous, squalling, raw human music, wearing an 8lb 13 oz suit of baby magic. Such a crescendo as hers did require stitches, and left me with a sore throat.

Baby wig photo ops. Enough reason to start a family.