Recovery

Day 3:Day 4:

On the third day after surgery, Roan still looked like he'd joined Baby Fight Club. But today, the fourth day, the swelling is almost gone, and the bruising is starting to fade. His eyes look almost symmetrical in this photo.

Throughout this whole process Roan has been a champion baby. Once he got over the anaesthesia, he's been just as happy and as playful as ever. He doesn't seem to bothered or traumatized. Jay and I, however, are traumatized. We're giving him an oral antibiotic three times a day, which is pretty nasty despite the cherry flavoring, and Baby Tylenol for soreness and pain. We are icing his eye each time we feed him, and applying a topical antibiotic cream afterward. We are attempting to keep socks on his hands. The hardest part is keeping him from rubbing and scratching his eye - he can tell something is different about it, and wants desperately to check it out / poke it out. Because of this, everything was initially a two person job - someone to do whatever needed doing (diaper change, burping, giving medicine, whatever), and someone to make sure Ro didn't put his fist in his eye. He also seemed to be bent on jamming all his toys into his eye. Once, I even saw him try to kick himself in the eye. Guess he doesn't want to lose his street cred.

My mom flew in the day before the surgery, and we leaned hard on her. Having a third person to split baby time and share the night shifts made it bearable. She also made chicken salad sandwiches when we were starving and too tired to order delivery, and did a breathtaking amount of laundry. Even now, as a grown woman and a mother myself, my mom has the power to swoop into my life, like a magic fairy or something, and make everything okay. I'm not sure what that says about the kind of person I am, that I still need this kind of fix - maybe nothing. But it says a lot about the kind of person my mom is.

Jay's parents flew in a day later, and having three grandparents around has been heavenly. My mom's now flown home, so they've taken the weekend shift. Jay and I stepped out for a beer the other night, to congratulate ourselves on what a badass our son is, and maybe, just for a fleeting second, pretend that we were just another childless couple getting our drink on at 4PM.