He's here!

I normally try to keep my friends and family anonymous on my blog, but I really truly could not resist sharing this one photo of my new nephew. He's just so stinking beautiful!

Despite the 36-hour labor, my sister looks fabulous, which isn't surprising seeing as she had the most fabulous pregnancy (no morning sickness, regular weight gain, no swollen feet). Which, sadly for me, probably means that I've inherited all the bad pregnancy traits and will probably gain 60 pounds, be sick all the time, and grow troll feet. Figures.

It's amazing what you find yourself capable of doing when there's a newborn baby around. My sister and brother-in-law are surviving on just a few snatches of sleep (the kid has to eat every 2-3 hours). And I even cleaned their house, did their grocery shopping, and cooked up a few meals to get them through the first week. I don't even do that for myself.

It's also amazing the things you learn about having a newborn. First of all, the hospital hooks up a LoJack system to the baby. Seriously. He has a little key fob type thing snapped on and sets off an alarm if he's taken out of the maternity ward! The potential for such a system is endless. I'm thinking of a few women who might want to invest in such an item for the men in their lives....

Anyway! I also learned that there are multiple "holds" when you're trying to nurse the baby. There's the football hold, the cradle hold, the cross cradle hold, the lying down hold. Who knew? The brother-in-law and I had to spend more than a few minutes trying to decipher the instructions and pictures.

And I've also learned how easy it is to get sucked into constantly talking about a babies. I don't ever want to be that mother who has nothing to talk about but her kids ... and yet, I feel like I'm always talking about babies lately and I don't even have one of my own! Just today, I had lunch with a friend who is a mother of two and probably 60% of the conversation was about her newborn and my sister's newborn, how frequently they eat, how long they sleep, what model stroller she uses, which children's store is having a clearance sale. Dear God. I can only hope that this part of the new baby in the family will fade away soon.

But for now, I'm basking in the joy of being an aunt, having a kid to brag about without the fuss of actually taking care of him, and not having classes to worry about over the summer!