Parenthood, here I am! We’re now home from the hospital with our brand new daughter. There were a few bumps along the way, but we made it through the delivery with a healthy and happy daughter and mom! The staff at Holland Hospital are simply amazing.

So far, our little daughter has been pretty laid back, only crying when being changed or swaddled or otherwise poked and prodded by the nurses and doctors violating her personal space. Once we got home, of course, she got to be a little more vocal as that desire to feed really kicked in. Cluster feeding has been the name of the game tonight, and Jen and I have just been taking turns, handing her back and forth and enjoying every minute of it.

So here I am at 3am with my little girl snoozing and twitching on my bare chest, squeaking and yawning every so often, and I gotta say, it’s one of the best feelings on the world. This whole skin to skin thing is supposed to be great for increased bonding and it’s working for me. Let’s just hope it’s tricking her into liking me too. Oxytocin is a hell of a drug.

The skin to skin times don’t come without their fair share of risks, though. I was chastising the dog after she stealthily snuck in and licked my daughter’s head and she took my moment of distraction as an opportunity to lunge at my nipple with a wide open mouth. I caught her just in time but, yeesh, that was a bit awkward.

We’re just getting our little family rolling here now, and our dog is quite fascinated by this new and tiny human. She’s very curious and a bit too licky for my tastes, but so far she is taking it all in stride. Even in my girl’s screaming fits, our dog is just more curious than anything. I thought she might get scared or stressed by a baby’s cries, but she seems to be genuinely interested and concerned about her new little sister. Our dog rocks.

So I guess I’ll end this post with what started out with the intention of being a cute family picture of our cat and dog watching over our little girl, but what turned into a rather creepy and portentous picture that I’m calling, “Fresh Meat”.