Meet Mark

Mark is now 6 days old. To me, he seems more like a 6 week old. He's pretty filled out (gorgeous plump cheeks!), he nurses amazingly well, and he appears to have sorted out his days and nights (meaning I get one 1.5 hour and two 2.5 blocks of sleep, and another 1 to 1.5 hour nap, which equals EIGHT HOURS and is sustainable!!). This morning he started rolling over from his tummy to his back.

Luke and I are both charmed by his newborn-ness: the smells, the sounds, the skin that is so soft and warm that it takes great will power to put him down in the cradle (which we do, because we're trying very hard to start good sleep habits). How do newborns smell so good? I can feel the happy brain chemicals release and wash around my skull when I inhale the scent off his round little head. The bliss of babyhood.

Scott is also doing well with Mark. He mostly continues about his own happy toddler life, but when he hears Mark awake he's very excited to tell us, and he runs to pat his brother or bring him toys. I'm excited for the time when Mark is big and walking and they can play together for real; he's going to love that. Scott has spent a lot of play time with our neighbors this week, who have a 4 year old boy and a 5 year old girl and he LOVES them. LOVES. I hope Mark will love Scott just that much when he's 2.

A little "footnote": Mark was born with clubfeet, which means the bones around his ankle formed in such a way that his feet were bent in toward each other. Happily this is a correctable thing. We went to Stanford on Wednesday and he got his first set of casts. He'll have them changed once a week, and after 4-10 casts the bones should be straightened. He'll wear braces until he starts crawling and then only at night once he's standing, and by 2-4 years old, not at all. No expectations for any long-term issues, and plenty of people with club feet have gone on to be dancers and marathoners and Kristi Yamiguchi and Troy Aikman.