New world order

• I'm learning to do everything in snatches of time - brushing my teeth, washing up, preparing food, watching TV, writing email or a blog post, reading a few article paragraphs. But I'm also learning to spend as much time with my baby as she feeds, has a nappy change, feeds again, goes for a wander with me around the house as I burp her, lay her down to play with, chat to her in my lap. The moments with baby are never rushed, just the rest of my life.
  
  
• Just when I think she's following a routine set by M and I, she decides she wants to set her own. She is the boss of the household now.
  
  
• We have short spurts of time to do many things, from entertaining to vegging out on the sofa, but always, always with one ear and eye on the baby monitor. The baby monitor is the most important gadget in my life right now (though the wireless Samsung laptop M bought me as a giving birth gift post-birth is a very close second and the reason I can blog away still in snatches of time).
  
  
• I am trying my best to still read The Economist, the FT, Marie Claire, Red et al... but really I want only to read books and magazines on babies - baby sleeping and feeding habits, baby health, baby development milestones, baby play. My brain is full of baby and the steep learning curve is both exciting and frustrating. Neither M's nor my PhD prepared us for this.
  
  
• I am grateful my mother is a paediatrician and for the advice she has access to. We were in a panic the other night as Little P was struggling to settle from what we thought were severe digestive and hydration problems and we didn't know who exactly to call. My mum determined with a colleague that baby was simply very hungry and that she wasn't being fed enough. She told us the exact amount we should feed per kg of baby's weight - something midwives have never told us properly. So simple, so right.
  
  
• I walk around with a permanent burping cloth draped over my left shoulder. At least my baby doesn't despair of my new fashion sense, even if everyone else does.
  
  
• My husband is infinitely more patient and calmer with her than I am. I am learning lots from watching them interact.
  
  
• I never knew love could get any more intense, but it just deepens and widens every time I am with her.
  
  
• I can't believe she is just 1 week old. In my eyes she already no longer looks like a newborn.