Robin Artemis photo gallery

The next seven days, 15-22 April, 2011

Some compulsory cute sleeping baby pics.

Less cute baby pic. The suit is a handmedown from Aurelius up in Byron Bay, a little boy born in December who Robin will meet this coming October.

Second bath, first bath at home and the first one he really enjoyed. Though you can see he hasn't yet quite decided whether he likes this one either. It was our first trial of the new baby bath. I had really disliked using the one in the changetable with Sparrow - while it wasn't a bad height it was still hard on my back, and it was awkward to lift them in and out while juggling towels, and you couldn't move it between the book room and the bathroom easily and it didn't fit in the bathroom well enough to stay there and you couldn't drain it without lifting the full bath of water which was too heavy for me with my scar, and, and, and. I had lots of reasons I didn't like it. So this time I'd bought this little baby bath. I tried to get one that would sit on the bath edges so it would be at a better height, but couldn't find one of those that fit our bath. This one just sits in the bath so draining it only means pulling the plug. We've got the Baby Beetle towel that hooks around your neck so there's no (or much less) towel juggling. And it works a lot better. James found it a bit hard to reach though, so we have got a plastic box for it to sit on in the bath to make it a little higher so that my short arms can still hold Robin securely. So much thought, planning and logistical management for something he will outgrow by the time he's five or six months old.

Bath successfully completed and now drying off in front of the heater. We always had to do this with Sparrow as it was so freezingly cold in the bathroom. Because Robin is a month earlier in the year the cold snap hasn't hit yet so the bathroom's not so bad - nor is the heater really necessary - but it's still a habit we have and it works well enough. Robin does like lying in front of the heater, possibly a leftover thing from his day of jaundice treatment in the isolette. Or just because.

Helping Daddy roleplay on Sunday night. James didn't roleplay the whole night though as he went to retrieve Grandma who'd got sick and was at Flinders St Station.

Hi, I'm Bru. Bru Swain.
You can blame my brother, Robin's Uncle Chris, for that one.

A complete picture of the boy. The cord had come off already - it came off a little early because it dried up with the jaundice hotbox treatment. When the cords fall off early it usually means the bellybutton continues to ooze for a while. You can see that here. I think it stayed a little bloody for maybe as much as two weeks but I'm not sure - it's the sort of thing you don't notice stopping. The forceps mark would still be visible on his forehead, just - it was fading but hadn't quite gone yet - but when I took the photo he turned his head away (it's over the right eyebrow).

Sleeping. So much colour on his face. He had a very red nose at first. I thought he looked a little Elvis like sleeping in this pose in the white jumpsuit, or maybe John Travolta. But I didn't get out any rhinestones to try with the outfit.

The fateful dinner at Taco Bill. Robin slept through it and we ate over him. After this Sparrow got gastro, and a few hours later so did James and I. I ended up spending the next day or two closeted with Robin and feeding him anytime he had any interest in food, and washing myself what seemed like endlessly every time I gave Sparrow a hug or dealt with some of the gastro fallout. In the end he was the only person in the family who didn't get sick, but we (and especially me) were a bit meticulous about trying to make sure that was the case. Hooray for breastmilk antibodies. Sparrow was very cross that she kept being prevented from hugging Robin, didn't understand that at all.

Newborn zit face! You can see he's been getting plenty of milk. Forceps mark is gone. This is two days later, as we're all recovering and starting to catch up on sleep and chores post-sickness.

Thankfully we didn't have a lot of laundry to catch up on as Mum had been doing that as we went, being only mildly affected by our bout of gastro (hers earlier in the week probably helped protect her). After she left on Thursday morning I did have a lot to put away. Robin is "helping" me sort towels by entertaining himself. There's also a big pile of stuff from one of Mum's projects. She picked up a variety of cupboard locking type things to replace the one on the laundry cupboard door that broke. None of them worked on the laundry cupboard, but they'll be useful in other spots like the sharp-things cupboard in the kitchen. We would have got them sorted out but that was one of the many little things put on hold by our two bouts of gastro. It'll be a while before Robin needs it though, and Sparrow's almost trained. Almost. Still a bit of a risk.

That evening, going out for a very small and quiet walk to round off the day after almost three weeks of people staying with us.