a week of outings

Yesterday was a very busy day here at the house of baby. Evelyn had her two-week checkup in the morning, and I had a post-surgery check-up in the afternoon. Mom and my niece came down to go with us and to spend the night, and we had a nice time. We also ate well. (Steak for lunch! And fried potatoes for dinner! I have been craving mommy-style fried potatoes for months. She's made them for me several times, but it's one of those things that I don't bother trying to make myself because they always turn out differently than hers. Good, just different.) Eating is good these days. I'm starving constantly.

Anyway! Her appointment was with a pediatrician she hadn't seen before, but I really liked her as well. Three for three! I am very impressed with both the group obgyn practice and (what I've seen of) the group pediatrician practice in this town. Evelyn weighed 8lb 13oz at birth. The day after I got out of the hospital and took her in for her jaundice check-up (thirteen days earlier) she was down to eight pounds. Yesterday, she was up to nine pounds even, so she is gaining weight very well. She's starting to look and feel bigger--today, we put a small diaper cover on her rather than the newborn one we've been using. It felt so strange to see that my tiny baby is outgrowing things already. She also grew a quarter of an inch. When she stretches, several of her sleepers are beginning to be a bit small. The jaundice is better, and she didn't hear a heart murmur at all, so all is well with that. Oh, and the doctor was very impressed with her cloth diaper--I love showing those off.

My appointment turned out just fine, too. I was a bit pissy by the time I went back there, since I had been waiting over an hour. I get it that they can only do so much with three or four doctors back there, as they said when they apologized... when I asked if I was still on the list... but that just means STOP SCHEDULING SO MANY APPOINTMENTS FOR ONE DAY. Dimwits. Anyway, that's just a doctor's office for you. Incision is healing nicely, and there was really nothing else to say this time, so the whole thing took about five minutes. I did ask if I had been mean to him, with the obvious intent of apologizing.. I made a real effort to be polite to all of the medical staff--it is the south and polite is what we do, you know. ;) I may even have thanked the nurse who did my catheter. When I was writing the six thousand page birth story, I started worrying that I had been rather.. bitchy.. to the actual doctor, since I was not in the best of spirits by the time I dealt with him. I had been in augmented labor for eight freaking hours (and the normal, un-drugged type for about thirteen) before he even came on duty, and by the time the c-section topic came up a few hours later, I was a bit tired of everything, and also stoned. He assured me that he didn't think so, but if I had been, he didn't remember it or had forgiven me at the very least. Isn't this story very, very me? Can I not find anything else to worry about than whether the doctor who delivered my baby--and has probably taken plenty of abuse from women in labor--thought I was rude?

(The answer to that is yes, yes I can. Today, in fact, I decided against a little outing to the game farm here in town with my mom and niece based on my fears of exposing my daughter to the germs of theoretical airborne animal germs. Never mind the fact that it was ninety degrees (a valid reason to keep a newborn inside, I think), that our (used) stroller hasn't been cleaned yet, I am still sort of recovering from surgery and don't need to walk around that much and that she was a bit fussy this morning and I didn't want to take her out. No, I had to worry about bird flu or the equivalent thereof. Parenting is so not going to be good for me.)

I also headed out this afternoon for about an hour to attend my boss's retirement reception at work. I left E with my mom again--she also kept her yesterday when I went to the doctor. It's pretty nice to have someone who I trust with my baby around. Yesterday, I was quite the cliche, and I called home twice to check on her although I was just gone an hour and a half. I used to think people who did that were just completely crazy but I couldn't help it. I KNOW that if something was wrong, Mom would have called me. The only thing I can really do for Evelyn that she can't take care of is feeding her, and I had just fed her before I left and even if I hadn't, she wouldn't starve to death in an hour. In any case, it was nice to go. And I wore real clothes! Nice clothes, and shoes with a heel. I don't particularly enjoy wearing nice clothes or fancy shoes normally, but after wearing maternity clothes for so long, it felt pretty good.

And now.. I am going to go snuggle on the couch with M and we will watch Mythbusters. Sounds like a nice evenings to me!