It's only been one week since Clark first touched US soil, and already we can't imagine life without him. It's a strange adjustment. Of course, pre-baby you have a cognitive idea of what baby life will be like - and every parent you see chortles and tells you how different your life will become - but there's always little things that you didn't see coming. We're not idiots. We knew there would less time to do X, Y and Z and more time devoted to Clark's well-being. The game now is to see how well we can integrate the people we used to be with the family we want to be.
Mike - always with the probing questions - asked me if there was anything about "Surprise! Parent!" that I didn't expect. I have to say, not a lot. Even at four months old, babies are a lot like the worst pet you ever had... always either sleeping, eating, whining or pooping. Laughing if you manage to debase yourself enough to amuse them. What I told Mike was, the biggest surprise was the amount of time Clark needs to be held and rocked. And always while standing; the lad won't accept any weak-kneed sitting. I had sorta assumed we could lay him on a playmat or sit him in a swing to calm him down... so that's really been the biggest unexpected requirement of parenthood so far.
The sleep schedule isn't going great. Tonight Matt - who has a son only one month older than Clark - showed me their doctor's suggested sleep patterns, so now we have a goal to work towards. If it trims down the every-other-night problem of waking up at 1am and staying up for several hours, we'll be calling in Merlin Olson for a Thank You bouquet.
Clark has been introduced to lots of lots of family members in his first week home, with more visits planned. We had been warned that Korean babies tend to hate car rides, but Clark has been largely fine with that. As long as he's moving, he's okay. That goes for automobiles as well as mommy/daddy's arms. It seems to be his mantra.
He has sat and watched me play Paper Mario and Katamari Damacy for about 15 minutes each. He gave the TMBG ABCs DVD and Sesame Street about 20 apiece... we figured that was plenty at his age. Most of his entertainment comes from us shaking things at him, since he's not up to grabbing and shaking toys himself yet. Staring at lighted objects is also big stuff. We have some light-up Baby Einstein toys that he enjoys.
The cats really could care less about his presence. If he screams really hard, Zoe will bolt and Annie will hide. But aside from that, they still proceed as normal. In fact, today Annie tried to crawl into my lap while I was still feeding him. That's how little they regard him. For Clark's part, he doesn't have a cat concept yet. He'll watch Zoe in the kitchen since she's so high-contrast, but nothing akin to delight at seeing them run or feeling a fluffy tail brush his face. Since he's not grabbing fur yet, the indifference seems to be mutual.
We assembled his stroller today. The prevalence of giant baby necessities like that makes it all the more real. All of a sudden, we're those people with the big stroller and motorized swing and a SpongeBob sunblocker on the car window.
