Please welcome...

Seamus Guybrush DuMaison, seven pounds and change of larynx, digestive system and complete adorableness. Three weeks old and he can lift his head for a few seconds and sort of follow things with his eyes! HE'S A PRODIGY!!!!

And a redhead! I was hoping for a redhead! All the teachers are going to think he's trouble whether he actually is or not, but I don't care, red hair is awesome.

I have three words to describe childbirth, and they are OH DEAR GOD. I did have to get induced, and I did get myself all drugged up, but the epidural didn't quite take all the way... and now I have pretty much blocked the memory, as one does with extreme trauma. They put him on my chest and he was covered in blood and goop and screaming loudly and it was AWESOME. It took a bit, but I am now firmly under the influence of the Alien Mom Ray, one side effect of which is that you can never again sleep through any baby making any sound whatsoever, even if it's just happy, sleepy little "eh eh" noises... and newborns make ALL KINDS of weird little noises, all the time, conscious or unconscious.

Also they can get terrible intestinal gas and shriek for hours on end. I can do hungry, tired, bored, etc. cries, but this one's too much for me, because it hits me right in the hindbrain and my jumped-up lady hormones put me on high panic alert because oh my god my son is screaming he is SCREAMING someone is hurting him I will KILL THE SHIT OUT OF THEM. Except you can't violently murder intestinal gas.

Things I did not understand about parenting, I now understand. Co-sleeping: they quiet down when they're being snuggled, and also hugging a sleepy baby makes you feel kind of drunk, like human Valium, so sleeping next to a baby would be win/win - alas, I'm too paranoid about rolling over on the little guy. Vaccinations: I am starting to figure out that the "someone is hurting my baby, kill the shit out of them" reflex is so strong that some people would rather make long elaborate angry arguments about adverse effects and herd immunity rather than watch their kid be stuck with needles and cry. Breastfeeding: I can't, I take meds that are not compatible, and I didn't think I'd want to anyway, but when the milk came in it was RIGHT THERE and what the hell are you going to do with it, not feed your kid? I felt so horrible, and yeah some of it was the lectures from the midwife and the nurses and the lactation consultant they sent me even though I said "don't send me a lactation consultant" and the fact that I had to explain my extensive research on the issue multiple times before they'd leave me alone, but mostly it was that here I was, lactating, doing one of the key things mammals do, and it was completely useless. I suck at being a mammal.

And doing weird things with the placenta, or burying it under a tree, or god forbid eating it. I get that. Childbirth is indeed magical, for a given value of magical - not so much unicorns and rainbows, but the sort of magic where you go out barefoot in the woods at midnight and do something unspeakable with goat entrails and come back hollow-eyed but imbued with a terrible wisdom. This is ancient, blood-for-life sort of stuff. If you think eating your own body part gives you some sort of talismanic edge I say bon appetit.

Needless to say, I can only blog right now because the Wee Baby Seamus is out cold, being adorable, little arms flung out in random directions, and I didn't swaddle him tonight so he's probably going to flail around, hit himself in the face and wake himself up later. The lack of motor control is absolutely astonishing. Horses come out walking! Ah well, I guess that's the biped's dilemma.

Oh, now he's squeaking. That sounds like an "I'm waking up" squeak, not a "REM sleep" squeak. And now back to your regularly scheduled sleep deprivation...