Jamie - trying to tick all the boxes

True to her promise that there would be a parcel in the mail for me, Jo's special delivery to Rhonda Hetzel (author) arrived. She made the mistake of adding "(author)" after my name so I've been taking full advantage of it and added it to a couple of emails I sent yesterday afternoon. Funnily enough, I've thought of myself as a writer for about 20 years now, but never an author. Self perception is a strange thing. Anyhow, I have the "first pages" here now, I have to read the entire book, add my thoughts and suggestions and get it back in two weeks.

Later in the day our guests arrived and soon after they settled in we all piled into the car and drove up the mountain to our favourite German restaurant for lunch. We have been eating there for about 14 years so it was lovely to take Sunny and Jamie there for the first time. Lunch over, we went into the neighbourhood centre to introduce the baby, then back down the mountain again, we headed for home.

Sunny and Kerry left around 2.30 pm to look around the shops, catch a movie and go to dinner and that left us - Jamie, Opa and grandma to take care of each other. This was a journey of discovery for me, and I suppose for Hanno too.  We  tend to take most things in our stride, not much phases us, but this was different - this was exciting and we had to do it right. It's been a long time since we cared for such a young baby. What if we'd forgotten how? What if he didn't like us! What if he cried!!

Ten minutes after Sunny and Kerry left he started crying. He must have known! Hanno held him while I went to the kitchen to warm up one of the four bottles of breast milk Sunny left in the fridge. When the bottle was sitting in a jug of warm water, I took him from Hanno and, still crying, we walked outside.  He seemed to like the sun light and he settled for a moment while I introduced each chook by name.  But then he remembered he was hungry and started crying again. We walked through the garden, back inside, the bottle was warm and he fed really well. I hadn't lost my touch there, feeding - tick. He went to sleep again so I put him down close to where we were sitting. Then Kerry and Sunny called to see if everything was okay. Yep, he's been fed, had his nappy changed and he's sleeping - knowing that, they went to the movies.  Parents' phone call - tick.

I photographed him every which way and he didn't flinch at all, even with the flash going off.  Let's face it, he had a dry nappy, was snuggled down into his fleece and wrapped warmly and on a cold winter's afternoon, with a full belly of milk, it couldn't get much better than that.

Hanno and I watch some pre-recorded TV while he slept, I did some knitting, and he woke again about three hours later.  This time I was quicker with the warm milk bottle so there was whimpering but no crying. Koda didn't know what the crying was and every time she could, she stood looking at Jamie.

When he was awake he was so gorgeous. He smiled and looked around and soon it was time to sleep again.

Kerry and Sunny came home about 9pm. Jamie had just had another feed and was sound asleep in my arms. They'd had a lovely night out, they'd dined at The Spirit House and really enjoyed their meal and their time together.  And Jamie, Opa and I? Well, we'd enjoyed our time together too. We didn't get around to reading "Ten little finger and ten little toes" by Mem Fox, kindly sent to me by my editor, Jo, but we'll get around to it one day soon.  We have plenty of time.

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