Happy 2007!
The year has gotten off to a wonderful start for me already: My circle of friends and I welcomed a new little addition to our group: Hayden Thomas, who was born to our friend Kim and her husband Tom on December 31 at 5:01 p.m.
Hayden weighs 7 pounds and 11 ounces and has lots of dark brown hair but the fairest eyebrows. Kim thinks that eventually the dark hair will fall out and blond hair will grow in since she and Tom are both pretty fair, as is Kim's family though Tom's family is mixed.
The four of us hustled off to meet Hayden this morning after a night of celebrating Hayden's arrival and ringing in 2007. We were so excited to meet the little guy. And as if he knew his four aunts were coming, he was awake and ready to meet us!
The first impression of him was that he was absolutely perfect. Despite having held my little cousins over the last several years it's been years since I've held a newborn baby. I had forgotten how teeny tiny they are. Even swaddled in those blankets, Hayden was still a tiny little creature despite being almost eight pounds. The tiniest little hands and face, and deep, dark brown eyes that looked right up at you. He was just barely half of Tom's torso (who is hardly a big guy).
Hayden was just learning about his tongue and what he could do with it, which was mostly running it over his lips. His little sneezes shook his entire body and his little hiccups sounded like they hurt him.
He is not feeding very well, which the nurses hope will change by tomorrow. Apparently there is something about pushed through the birth canal that clears the mucus from the baby's body. So because Hayden was born via c-section, there's still some mucus in his body and as such I guess he's feeling too full to eat.
Kim is pretty swollen still -- her feet and ankles look painful. But her blood pressure has gone down considerably since Hayden's birth. They say time will be the best remedy but also that it will get a lot worst before it gets better. Kim is surprisingly in good humour over it all however, joking that today she has eight chins and tomorrow she will have nine.
Kim and Tom opened Hayden's Welcome to the World presents. I got him a book that I get every child in my life, Dr. Seuss's Oh The Places You Will Go! I wrote a little message inside the book:
Dearest Hayden,
Welcome to the world!
This world is already a more special place because you are here. Your mere presence has made the world brighter and more hopeful.
The world is yours to explore and discover. I hope that you will travel to the very far corners of the world to see all that it has to offer, including the things that are off the beaten path. I hope that your life will be full of adventures and journeys that teach you about this magical world but also about how amazing you are, too.
Love,
Aunt Alex
After visiting with Hayden, over coffee we all remarked about how bizarre it felt now that one of our friends was a mom and had a baby now. We've known Kim for more than 20 years, having met on our first day of kindergarten. (I've actually known Kim since we were three as we were in Sunday School together.) It was an odd feeling when she became engaged and then married to think that someone I used to finger paint with would be someone's wife, but now to think of that very same girl as someone's mom, totally responsible for this other life, is simply surreal. The idea doesn't "click" yet even though there we were in her hospital room watching her try to nurse her baby.
As Karen said when we were leaving the hospital, we are officially adults now, whether we think we're ready for it or not.
The year has gotten off to a wonderful start for me already: My circle of friends and I welcomed a new little addition to our group: Hayden Thomas, who was born to our friend Kim and her husband Tom on December 31 at 5:01 p.m.
Hayden weighs 7 pounds and 11 ounces and has lots of dark brown hair but the fairest eyebrows. Kim thinks that eventually the dark hair will fall out and blond hair will grow in since she and Tom are both pretty fair, as is Kim's family though Tom's family is mixed.
The four of us hustled off to meet Hayden this morning after a night of celebrating Hayden's arrival and ringing in 2007. We were so excited to meet the little guy. And as if he knew his four aunts were coming, he was awake and ready to meet us!
The first impression of him was that he was absolutely perfect. Despite having held my little cousins over the last several years it's been years since I've held a newborn baby. I had forgotten how teeny tiny they are. Even swaddled in those blankets, Hayden was still a tiny little creature despite being almost eight pounds. The tiniest little hands and face, and deep, dark brown eyes that looked right up at you. He was just barely half of Tom's torso (who is hardly a big guy).
Hayden was just learning about his tongue and what he could do with it, which was mostly running it over his lips. His little sneezes shook his entire body and his little hiccups sounded like they hurt him.
He is not feeding very well, which the nurses hope will change by tomorrow. Apparently there is something about pushed through the birth canal that clears the mucus from the baby's body. So because Hayden was born via c-section, there's still some mucus in his body and as such I guess he's feeling too full to eat.
Kim is pretty swollen still -- her feet and ankles look painful. But her blood pressure has gone down considerably since Hayden's birth. They say time will be the best remedy but also that it will get a lot worst before it gets better. Kim is surprisingly in good humour over it all however, joking that today she has eight chins and tomorrow she will have nine.
Kim and Tom opened Hayden's Welcome to the World presents. I got him a book that I get every child in my life, Dr. Seuss's Oh The Places You Will Go! I wrote a little message inside the book:
Dearest Hayden,
Welcome to the world!
This world is already a more special place because you are here. Your mere presence has made the world brighter and more hopeful.
The world is yours to explore and discover. I hope that you will travel to the very far corners of the world to see all that it has to offer, including the things that are off the beaten path. I hope that your life will be full of adventures and journeys that teach you about this magical world but also about how amazing you are, too.
Love,
Aunt Alex
After visiting with Hayden, over coffee we all remarked about how bizarre it felt now that one of our friends was a mom and had a baby now. We've known Kim for more than 20 years, having met on our first day of kindergarten. (I've actually known Kim since we were three as we were in Sunday School together.) It was an odd feeling when she became engaged and then married to think that someone I used to finger paint with would be someone's wife, but now to think of that very same girl as someone's mom, totally responsible for this other life, is simply surreal. The idea doesn't "click" yet even though there we were in her hospital room watching her try to nurse her baby.
As Karen said when we were leaving the hospital, we are officially adults now, whether we think we're ready for it or not.
Labels: Life
Congratulations auntie Alex! :) I'm sure you will be a wonderful aunt for little Hayden.