Hello everyone,
Welcome Baby Boy Bleecker! He arrived on August 18, 2020 at 2:38pm. 7lbs 1oz, 20in long.
Thank you so much for all the well wishes while I was in labor. I’m so grateful for my online family - that’s you! It’s been fun to share my experience with everyone and I’ll continue to do so as Sam and I fumble our way through parenting.
I’m also so grateful for our new neighbors. Sam and I were welcomed home with a surprise on our doorstep. Along with the Baby Boy balloons were bags of gifts from three families in the neighborhood and dinner for our first night home. All the moms have been texting to check in and told me to let them know if we need help with anything.
I’ve never lived in a community with amazing neighbors. And I’ve never been an amazing neighbor. I’ve always kept to myself. This outpouring of kindness and generosity has got me thinking how lucky we are to be surrounded with a support system - especially because with Covid, we are on our own during the first month.
What relationship do you have with your neighbors? And what kind of neighbor are you?
By the way, if you ever want to help out new parents, a home-cooked meal is like gold. We need to eat (I’m especially starving because of breastfeeding - didn’t know that was a thing!) but cooking and preparing food fall low on the list when caring for a newborn. So thank you, neighbors, for that delicious chicken tomato enchilada bake.
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To protect Baby Boy Bleecker’s identity, Sam and I have decided to give him a pseudonym as well. You can call him George. :)
Blog of the Week
Whenever something gets me riled up I know I should write about it.
And decorative hand towels get me riled up.
But getting riled up is not enough. I had to think about why they bother me so much and then think about how it relates to other things in life.
The result is this essay I wrote about decorative hand towels as a metaphor for our ideas. [Read the post here.]
My Birth Story
If I could only describe the birth of my son in one word it would be surreal.
While I lay recovering in the hospital the following day, I took notes on my phone so that I wouldn’t forget anything - because I hear Moms say all the time that they forget the birth.
On the one hand, it makes sense that women forget because labor and childbirth can be a traumatic experience. On the other hand, it’s so painful that I don’t understand how women can actually forget.
I wrote a Twitter thread of my experience:
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Until next week,
Charlie