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i’ve been incommunicado since aug 2 because i was in mama lalaland.  i promised odin that the first 6 weeks of his life would be all odin all the time.  phil may contend that i am still in the all-odin-all-the-time stage and express his doubts that it’ll ever be otherwise, but what’s a mom to do?  i may never get to be 100% odin ever again, so i relished it while i could.  before aug 2 i was in communication lock-down because (1) i was working 70+ hour weeks january to june, (2) june-july  i was in culture shock from not having been in the u.s. in almost a year, (3) i talked to and saw people rather than blogged people, and (4) i was loving being pregnant so focused on the bean.

now the bean’s here and we call him odin.  i still haven’t settled on a good nickname… i’ve tossed around frog, frogger, my little frog, and other variations on that theme.  i like bear but that’s taken.  i freely use sweetie, sweetie pie, munchkin, cutie but feel maybe generic.  wolverine (he is a voracious eater who tells everyone all about it with his grunting, growling, smacking and various other happy eating sounds) comes up now and then but hasn’t stuck.  o names are great for o-boy, o-dog.  he could take after his dad and be obo.  phil calls him goldeneye now and then - he still has yellow jaundice eyes.  blue light special and smurf came and went with his bili lights.  pumpkin and peanut have always been faves of mine.  i look at him now and remember the one i use the most for him - “my beautiful baby boy.”  trip b for short.

odin is now 7+ weeks old.  he had his two-month check-up yesterday and left the dr’s office with 4 matching purple bandaids as evidence of all the shots - poor guy.  the nurses said, this will be just a little prick.  dad said, don’t listen to them odin, that needle’s long enough to reach your thigh bone.  odin cried hard really hard and i held his arms and sang “you are my sunshine” into his ear.  they took all the requisite measurements and he’s 75% across the board - i’m not giving the numbers any credence other than that they reassure me he’s getting enough to eat.  the boy’s growing something fierce - 12 pounds.  i guess no worries about my milk supply.  pretty cool that he’s growing purely on what he’s getting from me…breastfeeding is so cool.

odin’s a rockstar traveler.  tuesday we drove from fox lake to mpls to grand marais with stopovers at HQ (yep, odin goes to work with me), lunch with swiss sarah, SLP for his 2-month appt, and dinner in duluth.  hopefully our luck will hold out for the 24+ hour travel back to UG.  we opted to get his immunizations as early as possible so there’d be enough time for any complications to arise before taking him home but didn’t think about a potentially crabby baby post-shots driving in a car for 5+ hours.  as it turns out he’s a pretty mellow kiddo.  so far no adverse reactions to the shots except a mild fever (99.3F).  i was semi worried about his fever until i read the immunization info packet and it said “moderate” reactions include a fever of up to 105F.  a 105 degree temp is moderate?  wow, kids are amazingly hearty little creatures.  dr. dukinfield, one of our many doctors in odin’s first weeks of life, told us in the hospital “babies are born to survive.”  it’s the best parenting advice i’ve heard yet.