Back in the Saddle Again

Alright; I'm back.  Time to get this new adventure underway in the blogosphere.  So let's start with the elephant in the room: Rosaline.  What do you want to know?  Official stats: she was born at 12:25pm on Friday, December 16th.  She was 7lb's 13 ounces and 21.5" long.  Let's start there; I kind of expected bigger.  I've gotten so used to the twin towers that I was thinking 9, 10, hell even 11 pounds wasn't an unreasonable expectation (Gina's definition of "unreasonable" might differ).  But when she came around that curtain and I caught a glimpse of her for the very first time it didn't matter. ... I was in love.  She was perfect.  A small tuft of dark brown hair horeshoing the back of her head. ... kind of gave me a visual of my future hair line.  She has a nose that looks remarkably like Genevieve's but a forehead more in line with Arianna's.  She's got a great little jaw with a tiny "chin butt", as we call them, in her chin.  In fact, she looks remarkably like my 12 year old sister-in-law. ... like jaw dropping remarkably.  Long fingers.  Long toes.  And quiet.  My god how quiet she is.  The first night in the hospital I kept waking up thinking something was wrong because she didn't scream.  She didn't even cry.  She whimpers a little when she's hungry or when she's getting her diaper changed, but that's really the extent of it.  Now we stayed a little longer in the hospital than normal.  Post delivery Gina had a couple of minor complications arise that involved a second surgery. ... and which I've been told I can't blog about.  In fact, I believe that was Gina's first words: "Don't you dare blog this."  So. ... we'll skip that chapter.  What cracked me up most of this experience was the twins (can't call them "the girls" anymore unless I'm referring to all three) behavior in the hospital.  Our hospital is a smaller one, not one of the big city hospitals with NICU or any other kind of specialty type stuff, so when the girls where born they were like mini celebrities.  And they still got it!  They would swagger up and down that hallway telling any staff member they walked by that they were there to see new sissy and they brought their dolls to show her.  I kept thinking I would have to remind the nurses that we had a newborn there too because those two clowns kept upstaging her.  I'd take them home for nap and return empty armed only to have the staff asked me "what happened to the twins?"  Then leaving the hospital was like it's own parade route.  All we were missing was a horn section and some Shriners driving in front of us.  But the chaos of the hospital is over.  We've been home since Tuesday and everything is settling in.  The girls have been adapting wonderfully to big sisterhood - last night they both climbed in to bed swiftly at the promise of being able to lie next to new sissy for a few minutes; Genevieve even got up later to bring Rosaline a pacifier from her own private stash.  Gina has been improving, slowly, but any improvement is improvement none the less.  And baby Rosaline has continued in her perfection.  With the girls I would have to lug myself out of bed at nights, often times grumpy, and the older they got the more I realized how much I was missing those fleeting moments.  This time around I'm enjoying the midnight rocking chair sessions and the million and one diaper changes. ... the little things.  In fact, last night (aka early early early this morning) Gina went to move a pillow and woke me up.  My instinct was to stop her because I was so convinced that the baby was still sleeping there in my arms.  I had actually put her to bed some 30 minutes earlier.  But that's how quickly you snap back in to it.  Just like riding a bike.  On a tightrope.  Over a crocodile infested gorge.  Through a ring of fire.  With a couple of clowns sitting on your shoulders.