Home, Again, Now

Oh, where to even begin?

I suppose I should start at the beginning, with the birth story, or highlights from our roller-coaster-y hospital stay, or what happened when Noah and Ezra met their new brother for the first time. Or I should tell you how the sibling thing is working out at home, or how breastfeeding is going this time around, or about Ike's first doctor visit today. 

I should. I will. I definitely will. But today, right now...

I can't think about anything else except how round his head is, how crazy long his fingers and toes are, or about how perfect his little mouth is and how delicious he smells.

Or about how it's possible for someone to be the most beautiful little person you've ever seen, even at times when they look alarmingly similar to Wallace Shawn in The Princess Bride. 

I spent a lot of this pregnancy exceedingly worried about things. How would I cope with three children, three boys? How was I going to handle a newborn again, with all the pooping and crying and not sleeping and sore boobs and aching incisions and just...everything. Would my father's death hang extra heavy in the bleary and hormonal postpartum period? Would I be sad? Was I really ready for this? Had we completely screwed up our lives? WHAT WERE WE THINKING?

In all of my fretting and fussing and endless searching for the Perfect Tummy Time Playmat, I kind of forgot about one little thing: That I would have Ike. Not just a needy, cranky generic newborn, but IKE, the needy, sometimes-cranky-sometimes-chill-always-probably-hungry Ike. Whom I would love down to my toes from the second I heard his first cry -- a cry that caused me to burst into tears and immediately babble to Jason that he's it, he's it. I can't believe I ever doubted, because he's exactly it. 

In other words, yes, I was ready for this. In fact, I love this. And I already can't imagine life without this, without him, without our sweet Baby Ike.