So much for my plan to blog every day since the baby was born.  Yes, I was that delusional.  Although I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to blame the baby for my lack of posts, considering I spend hours of my day sitting on the couch taking useless close-up  photos of him and wondering if I should actually start to contemplate what real life will be like once the “new baby” excuse wears off.  But the good news is I have a plan that I’m hopeful will encourage me to blog on a regular basis — I figure the least I can manage is to share one thing I’ve learned every day about having a new baby, and whatever other random thoughts pop into my head that may help other clueless moms like myself.  Plus I need an excuse to shamelessly post all his close-ups because Facebook can only be exploited so much (& I’m sure I walk the line).

So tomorrow the new blog begins (or maybe later today if I’m super ambitious). But just to catch everyone up, I thought I would share some notable moments (that were actually photographed) from Noah’s first couple of weeks at home:

(1) A couple of days after we left the hospital, we took Noah back to the doctor to get circumcised.

Noah oblivious to his pee pee’s fate

I’m sure he will be grateful we also captured this experience on video:

Noah’s Circumcision from Katie Cherkasky on Vimeo.

Happier baby at his first doctor visit.

(2) Andy and I go to the grocery store nearly every single day.  Despite our best efforts to “plan ahead” for our meals, it never quite seems to work out.  So we have resigned ourselves to a lifestyle of wasting time and money for the sake of not having to think ahead.   A few days after we got home, I figured Noah might as well get into the routine and take his first solo outing with Mommy.  After having Andy explain and demonstrate how to get his carseat in and out of the car 7 times (seriously), I felt prepared to embark on our shopping adventure.  I don’t think I have ever been so nervous at my old stomping grounds.  First, I was afraid the carseat was not secured in the cart; then I was nervous he was getting cold, which I resolved by supplementing his blanket with a burp cloth (as pictured); and mostly I was legitimately nervous that I was going to crash into every other patron because it is impossible to see over the cart with a baby seat on top.  We managed to avoid any serious accidents, and made it home (.10 miles away)

Blindly maneuvering this cart through Albertsons.

(3) Noah had been sleeping fairly well through the night for the first few days.  And by “fairly well,” I mean he would actually sleep for 3-4 hours at a time, which wasn’t unbearable.  One night (they all blend together), he woke up around 4:30 and wouldn’t go back to sleep despite eating, being changed, more eating, rocking, burping, and me begging him.  Andy woke up sometime around 5:30 in the midst of this scenario and took the baby and told me to go to sleep.  I actually don’t remember anything after that — I immediately faceplanted myself on my bed and woke up around 9:30(!) in the morning.  I looked to my right and didn’t see Andy. Then I looked to my left and saw an empty bassinet.  I got up and went downstairs and found this.  Andy, not sure if this makes you the best husband or best daddy.

My boys watching golf for 4 hours while I slept.  Beautiful sight.

(4)  Our cat, Millie, is used to being the center of attention and getting generally harassed by Andy and me every day and night.  Obviously the baby has taken away some (okay, all) of our time to interact with her.  She has been super skeptical of this new creature  (“is that… alive?”), and was pretty much keeping her distance for the first few days.  Finally, she decided to check him out.

Millie saying Meow to the baby

(5) Eva came to visit her little brother this week, and she has been such a good big sister.  I think she is the perfect age (about 4 1/2)  to understand the new baby and even help out a little bit.  It’s pretty sweet to see.  Eva even offered to keep his bassinet in her room and let us know when he wakes up in the night! If she had any idea what she was saying…

Bedtime with Sissy

(6) Yesterday we did newborn and family photos at our house with Barbara Alessandra, who did our maternity shoot.  Barbara was supposed to get to our house at 11, which seemed like a more than reasonable time to get Andy, Noah, Eva, and myself ready… I’ll let you figure that one out.  But we managed to pull it together for the most part, and I’m excited to see the photos.  Here is an iPhone photo of one of Barbara’s shots of Noah in his nest.  He was eerily well behaved during the entire shoot, even when he was awake (despite peeing a couple of times on a couple of swaddle blankets — naked newborn photography is a dangerous venture).

Noah the model.

Phew — I feel caught up (kind of).  Shorter posts to come.