40 days and 40 nights

The night we brought Eli home from the hospital it was late.  We were exhausted.  I was a hormonal and swollen pendulum of emotions.  Zach was overwhelmed with lack of sleep and the thought of going back to school the next day.  We thought if we could just change his diaper, feed him, and get him to sleep then maybe we could recover just a little piece of normality and sleep together in our own bed.

We brought the screaming bundle into our living room (first car seat ride, not fun), unloaded him, laid out all the changing and pajama necessities, and Zach began to change his diaper while I anxiously hovered nearby.  At the exposure of his red little circumcision (and a very poopy diaper) Eli began to shriek and suddenly there was a squirt of liquid coming from nowhere.  It sprayed the wall, it sprayed me, and when Zach manfully sacrificed his hand to stem the flow it downsprayed all the clothes and diaper preparations we had just made.  When it finally ended we looked at each other in shock until I spied baby poop gushing out onto the changing table.  By the time we got that cleaned up Eli had reloaded his squirt gun and was firing again.

At this point I was laughing so hard that I lost what little postpartum control I had over my bladder and had to rush to the bathroom and leave Zach to do disaster cleanup.  When I finally got to bed that night I laid there convinced we were doomed to be wretched parents.  I had no idea what I'd gotten myself into.

 I would like to think that in the 40 days and nights that we've had Eli home that we've improved.  We figure that in that time that I've fed him over 400 times and we've changed over 500 diapers.  His crib has migrated from the side of our bed to the hallway to the doorway of his bedroom to up against the far wall of the nursery as our confidence in his crying ability has grown.  We've learned that poops come in threes.  We no longer use five wipes on one poopy diaper.  We no longer wash any article of clothing or blanket that might have come in contact with a bodily fluid and if it did, and if it's already dry... well then.

Eli has accomplished much in the first six weeks of his life:

Outgrown the first size of diapers

 Learned to love baths, especially when given by Grandma

 Become a weightlifting expert

Won the hearts of cute sister missionaries for his Uncle Austin

Established the order of hierarchy with his cousin McKenna

Practiced his baby modeling extensively

 Informed his parents of his continued disdain for his car seat

Discovered the camera

and mastered the art of Superman Sleeping

Six weeks later we're still exhausted, Zach's school is still overwhelming, and I am, on occasion, the tiniest bit hormonal.  But six weeks is just enough time to make us wonder what we ever did without this little man.