notes on an olive
hopefully you all have had a chance to read, a couple posts back, about the process by which we have welcomed olive into the world. if not, take a minute to read it…christen was on the brink of telling me to remove some stuff when she got a chance to read it, so that lets you know it’s worth the read. 🙂
i thought i would follow up the long account and the initial pics (which i hope to have more of very, very soon…) with some additional notes and observations.
note 1: for whatever reason, in my 4 million word expose post that gave the detailed labor account, i never mentioned anything about weight and height (the exhaustion excuse seems valid right now…). so, she was 6 lbs, 7 oz and 19 1/4 inches long. we produce ’em skinny and long. olive’s the virginia slims of babies, if you will.
note 2: speaking of measurements, as we were with lucy, we were eager to get the measurement of her head. christen and i are both proud members of the 2-foot club (our heads are at least 2 feet around…quite frankly, i could almost start the 3-foot club…). we’re happy to say that olive is following directly in our footsteps and is a new inductee into the 1-foot club, which is well on its way to a 2-foot neck melon.
note 3: i offered little in the way of a description of how she looks. obviously, you can see a few of the pictures in my last post and on christen’s flickr page, but those don’t tell you too much. while you can certainly see lucy in her, her looks, right now, are distinctively her own. here’s a breakdown of a few of her physical highlights:
hair: she’s got it. not a ton, but it’s there. it’s not so much blonde, and not brown, but kind of a dark goldenish color. really pretty.nose: this girl definitely has one. it’s not huge or freakish or anything, but, especially in the profile, you definitely know she has it… i’m takingcreditblame for that one…sorry, olive.mouth: you know how in the animation on the simpsons everybody’s mouth is kind of where the top lip juts out much farther than the bottom lip…yeah, apparently god simpsonized little olive in the womb.eyes: i think this is an area that she shares a commonality with lucy. like lucy, it’s hard to say what color eyes olive has. if i had to describe them, i would say they’re sort of a blue grey color. of course, i suspect that in different lights, they’ll look distincively different.fingers/toes: if not for the utter whiteness of olive and faith in my wife’s general commitment to fidelity, i would swear that she had an affair with wilt chamberlain or some lanky nba player, because olive’s rockin’ some freakishly long fingers and toes. i’m talkin’ genetic freak category here…
note 4: from the time we found out we were pregnant, one of the things we were most looking forward to was olive and lucy meeting. so, once olive was ready for others to come in, we brought in lucy before anyone else and had a family time. it was hilarious. lucy just sat there and stared at olive. she didn’t talk. she didn’t point. she didn’t touch. she just stared. not an evil stare. just a stare. you could tell the gears in her brain were churning. the conversation in lucy’s brain went something like this:
ok, there’s mommy. and she’s holding a baby. she appears to be holding it as to suggest, “this is my baby. i don’t intend to hand her back to her owner.” wait a minute. how can she have her own baby if she has me? i’m freaking lucy. i’m #1. maybe she doesn’t realize this. wait a minute. i’m looking at daddy and he’s acting in a manner as to suggest compliance with mommy’s assertion that this baby is hers. i’m thinking elaborate conspiracy here… i’m sure a little gouge to the baby eyeball or firm clamp around the juggular will clear this all up and we can return to lucy queen life as usual…
note 5: olive sucks. wait, let me reword that: olive sucks all the time. wait, strike that. what i’m saying is that olive sucks constantly. ok, this isn’t coming out the way i intended… olive is in a constant state of trying to breastfeed. that’s more the spirit of what i’m trying to say. boobs, fingers, blankets, foreign objects of any sort…olive is trying to suck them dry of whatever nutrients may lie within. this is a challenging past-time for us because we are constantly wondering if she’s actually hungry or just wanting to move her lips in a sucking fashion. she’s doing amazing (along with christen) at breastfeeding, so we think she’s getting plenty. so, i’ve just resigned to the fact that olive sucks.
alright, that’s all you get right now. we’ve been home for a few hours now and before lucy gets back from aunt ann’s house and while olive’s asleep (thus, not sucking), i need to try to get a nap (and i’m not even a napper…). check back soon for further needless details and pictures.
