Ella's First Year Week 1a. February 25-27: At the Hospital, page 2

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There was a steady stream of various educators while we were in the hospital, and at times we felt a bit inundated with information.  Most of it was repeating what we'd already read, either on-line at Babycenter.com or in one of the many books on pregnancy and child-raising we've been reading during the last few months, but it seemed like a whole new ball game now that the information wasn't about some hypothetical baby but about a real honest-to-goodness breathing, screaming, pooping, eating, gurgling, and most of all dependent little one. The book I've been really poring through recently is William and Martha Sears's The Baby Book, which is an appropriately liberal, positive guide to baby's first two years.  Catherine and I aren't sure we're completely sold on "attachment parenting" but it certainly seems better to me than the let-em-cry-it-out approach we've seen in other books.  We've begun to really be disgusted at many of the child-care texts out there--they almost all say not only that their way is the best but that if we don't follow their advice completely we'll be horrible parents and we'll ruin our baby's life forever.  The Searses at least, are willing to say take what's useful from out approach and discard the rest. It will certainly be interesting to see how our ideas of child-raising change over the coming months and years.  We've spent a fair amount of time talking about our attitudes, and I've been thinking about child-raising strategies for my dissertation for quite awhile now, but all that was abstract thought, and I wonder what will happen now that we've got a real human to practice our ideas on, and who will challenge us on our presuppostions, I assume, at almost every turn. Mostly, though, I'm just overwhelmed at this little girl.  Somehow I had expected that for the first weeks she'd really be just a passive receptor of our care, but by the time we were leaving the hospital, I could already see her studying our faces intently and responding to Catherine with excitement. And I'm overwhelmed at how amazing Catherine has been thoughout the last few days, throughout the whole pregnancy really.  She's shown strength and compassion that just knock me over.  She's going to be a fantastic mother and I am reminded of just how lucky I am to be married to her

Ella studies her new mom.

Daddy makes a good pacifier.

Ella had her eyes open, staring intently at Catherine's face while she breastfed in the hospital.