The three corners

Even though the family has expanded over the last few days, it doesn't really feel that way right now. The three of us right now are in three separate corners of town- each of us going through our own issues.

For Ken the ordeal is pretty straightforward. He has spent 9 months in a nice, warm, safe womb and now he has been dumped out into this bright, cold and mind bogglingly complex world. He can barely see and doesn't even know why he feels compelled to suck down as much milk as his little stomach can handle. Even just burping looks like a lot of work- he's got a lot to learn.

I am most concerned about Ritsy. I mentioned that she had to go to the hospital after the birthing and was pumped full of fluids at the hospital. When I visited her yesterday, she seemed healthy and I thought that for sure she would be released from the hospital and be able to return to the Midwife clinic to reunite with Ken. Last night though she had a fever and today, her blood tests showed her to be quite anemic, she is really low on iron. When I saw her she was again looking healthy and had no fever, just frustrated that she can't see her son.

Luckily the doctor offered a great suggestion- Myself, her sister and the woman from the clinic went to the hospital carting along little Ken to finally see his mom. Unfortunately Ritsy once again had a fever and only could hang with him for a few minutes. I feel real bad for Ritsuko- she just wants to connect with the little guy- and feed him her milk and be happy. But she is stuck recovering and now I worry that because he is getting used to the bottle, it'll be tough for him to switch to breast milk later. Well, I'll try not to get wound up in a little knot over something I can't fix.
As for me, my ordeal is about my leg. I had my cast taken off on Monday but I am meant to only walk with about 30% weight bearing pressure. God, I'm a horrible judge of how much weight that means, especially if you consider you can potentially take thousands of step in a day. It's much easier just to think that I should try to walk 'lightly' and I think I will be okay. I'm actually back to using my crutches more than I did in the last 3 weeks before it came off. I am confident that my leg will improve a lot and quickly, I just need to keep patient with it.

Separate the 3 of us will have to fight our battles and get to the next level- I really look forward to when we can all sit down together quietly (well as quietly as it gets with a baby) and enjoy the true feeling that we are a big family.

Here is a little video of the guy doing nothing, but as a parent, I feel it is cute anyway. Please pardon me for using the I'm talking to a baby voice- I am trying to avoid doing that too much...