Oh brother

Everything feels like it's in fast motion with Owen! The hospital staff had been great and very supportive, and it was nice to stay in the same room through the entire experience. Meh and I even found time to watch most of a movie early yesterday evening. But 30 hours after arriving at the hospital, we were still ready to make our way back home this morning. The rear-facing carseat was reinstalled, Owen was dressed in his first actual non-hospital-issued outfit, sitting in his car seat (unhappy like his brother once was, though some gentle swinging seemed to soothe him - already a bit of a difference!), and the rear-facing car seat snapped back into the base.

Next, Owen's first true test: meeting his brother. I'd visited Zachary last night and given him bed time, but he hadn't seen mommy since bedtime on Sunday. So she went in first and was greeted with a giant hug. I followed subtly with Owen in the car seat. Zachary didn't really pay attention to him -- until he was in mommy's arms. Then suddenly he really wanted to be up, and daddy just wouldn't do. He was distracted short of a full meltdown, but so begins a hopefully short-lived rivalry. Later on while Meh was feeding Owen, Zachary again decided her lap was where he needed to be, so there will definitely be some, ah, "learning opportunities" to explore in the coming months.

Once again a huge thanks to friends J and S, who had watched and entertained Zachary for nearly two straight days (starting again at the delightful time of 2:30 am on Monday). We've got so many wonderful and supportive friends to help us during this enormous life transition!

Mima and Papa had fortuitously pre-scheduled their flight to arrive at noon today (this despite not voting for a date on the blog poll!), so I went to pick them up soon after we got back home. They were of course delighted to meet their second grandson and get to play with their first, who correctly (more or less) identified them as 'mama' and 'papa' and was happy to see them. And the "relearning" has begun - I assembled two pack & plays today and stocked them with all of Owen's goodies (though alas, size 1 diapers are still too big, so I'll have to make a run to the drug store tomorrow for N's).