one month

Dear little Fife,

You have been here for one month now. You are cheeks and hair and mouth and toes. And thighs! With thigh rolls! You are the first of my babies to not need a bili-blanket for jaundice; you are the last of my babies.

Your siblings fight daily over who you look at more, smothering you with kisses and trying to teach you everything: how to smile, how to grab things, how to open your mouth wide for mama milk. It took them a whole month to realize that you (and all babies) are actually kind of boring, in that you can't really do anything with them yet. We are all excited for you to grow.

For me it has been a month of soft hair and warm breath--I waited so long for you to actually arrive, and now that you're here I just feel relaxed. You are nice to hold, you are nice to feed, you are nice to rock and sing to. Not overwhelmed by the particulars I am instead in awe of the universal, of the fact of human development: that you didn't exist at all, and then you did, and then you grew into something recognizably human, all invisibly inside my body, all in the space of nine months.

We call you by lots of nicknames, trying things out to see what fits:

• Fife
• Fifey
• Fifer
• Fifignewton
• Fifelina (e.g. Royal Tenenbaum: "Where's my Fifelina?")
• Filomena Halloweena
• Fillyjonk
• Fifearoo
• Electric Fiferella

We have also been looking for a suitable animal nickname, to go with Goose and Ox. Before you were born we were leaning toward Birdy, after a game that Oscar liked to play while I was pregnant, but then you were actually born and there was nothing remotely bird-like about you. The midwife at your birth suggested Moose, given your impressive size, but it didn't take. I am pulling for Bobcat (we saw one at the high desert museum, and it was cuddly like a house cat but much larger), but I seem to be the only one.

Maybe we'll have one by next month.

We love you so much!

Love,
Mama

the world according to fife

The first two weeks:

so, it's September.

unposted from September 2:

So, it suddenly feels like Fall but I'm still pregnant. How did September start with this baby still unborn?

we made another one

Welcome Filomena Ruth Broughton!

Born September 4, 2015, and 9:56am.

She came on her own terms: born at home, 2 weeks late; I went into labor 3 hours before we would have left for the scheduled induction at the hospital. She spent the extra two weeks carbo-loading: she weighed in at 10lbs, 15oz; 22 inches long; and she came out with an elbow in front of her face.

how oscar tells lucy to stop interrupting him

"You messed up my voice!"