A week old this evening

Gemma will be a week old this evening. This is a crazy time: happy, chaotic, painful, sentimental, nostalgic...all the stuff of which a family's "growing pains" consist. It is a sweet time, and yet difficult, fraught with the anxieties that plummeting hormone levels tend to bring on and tensions within the ranks of siblings who are trying to re-establish their pecking order.

Mostly, though, it is very good.

Gemma has a bit of jaundice, as did all her other siblings, so she has been sunbathing in the late afternoon light as it slants through the windows. She is finally opening her eyes to look at our faces. One can only imagine what she is thinking. Perhaps she is trying to connect the faces with the voices she has been hearing--now at much higher decibel levels--for so long.

And this, friends, is what ten years of diaper changes looks like beneath the diaper pad cover. My sister bought me a new one, since at this point, as you can well see, even duct tape is not an option.