Three weeks into this adventure: we're all still alive!

Finley sleeps like this. She looks like some sort of little baby prophet.

Except when she sleeps like a prizefighter. 

She loves to snuggle, especially with Dad. (Note that I'm getting the elbow.) 

Of course, all of this adorable sleeping and snuggling occurs during the day. At night she has taken to cluster feeding (an actual hostage situation for Mom) and often gives me this face. It means she's on the rampage, and no one's getting any sleep for a long, long time. My adorable, patient sister-in-law Lisa told me that Finley's cousin Tyler (just a day younger than she) has "his days and nights mixed up," which sounds so cute and hapless. I tend to think of my evenings more in terms of falling under the reign of a holy (hungry) terror.

The tiny tyrant is three weeks old today. We can hardly believe it. Time really does fly (except for the hours between midnight and 4am.) Staying home with a newborn is, like everything else, exactly as exhilarating and frustrating and exhausting as everyone says. Yet another one of those things you just don't get until you do it. We still have a ton of moments of gazing at her adoringly, disbelieving that she's ours, that she's growing so fast, and that we could possibly be so lucky. I cannot imagine- mostly- leaving her with someone else and going back to work.

I also have a fair number of moments during which I wish I could go back to my quiet office and crawl under the desk and never come out. Seth's busy with school so does not have nearly as many of these. He's a saint at night, though, when he gets home late from class- occasionally to a crying wife and baby, thanks to those evening cluster feeds. Last night he took a fussy Finley for hours while I passed out on the couch, from sheer exhaustion and frustration and still-hurting stitches. This is hard. My heart literally bleeds for single Moms- and all the de facto single Moms thanks to military obligations- that I know. I don't know how they do it. This whole adventure is without doubt a two person affair, and Seth has been a veritable saint. Finley and I would have a rough go on our own.

The crazy good moments, of course, eclipse what we have come to refer to as the baby witching hours. We take long walks in the afternoons, having been blessed with gorgeous weather of late. We have finally mastered the boba wrap- and Finley mostly sleeps through her vitamin D fix. Seth and I crack up when she snorts like a pig at mealtimes, and only new parents could get as much joy as we do out of her funny faces while she dirties a fresh diaper.

Bathtime is Dad time, and she couldn't be cuter in her hooded towel.

We're beyond grateful for our parents. My Mom cooks for us often, takes Finley and I for walks, and watches her while I go to the commissary for provisions or stop by work to tie up loose ends there. (Now that I've finally managed to master the art of driving with Finley without stopping every 12 seconds to make sure she's breathing.) It's unbelievably hard to leave her, and currently I will only do it with our parents. So we're counting our blessings there.

Seth's parents were here over the weekend, and it was a terrific visit. We were grateful they had given us a couple weeks for us to get into a semi-routine, and for me to be able to walk again. (It was a pretty miserable first two weeks.) Since we could all enjoy it- it was an even bigger treat to have them. Finley wrapped her grandparents around her tiny finger immediately- and I got away for a long-overdue hair appointment and even squeezed in a Target run. (The unedited batch of photos is here, and they're priceless.)

Well, I'm being summoned by a  ravenous beast. We're having a snowy day at home, and I've finally caught up on laundry and dishes while our little night owl snoozes through her first winter weather. But first-

I can't get enough photos of Seth and his baby. This one cracks me up, and is the obvious choice for photo of the week. Two peas in a pod.