Some things that I have learned:

1. Breastfeeding is hard.  If you have a bub who latches on straight away, you’re damn lucky.  I wasn’t, and it took a lot of hard work to get to where we are.  We still have some bad days if Liam is fussy, but most of the time it is wonderful.
2. I’ve dealt with fatigue from illness for a long time.  I thought I knew what tiredness and sleep deprivation were.  Hoo boy, I was wrong.  In the first few weeks, I was so sleep deprived that I was hallucinating.
3. People who offer help are angels, and you should take them up on it as much as possible.
4. My husband is truly awesome.  He did so much in the first few weeks, including dealing with many messy nappies in the middle of the night.
5. The smiles you get from your baby when you enter the room are the best thing ever.
6. Cloth nappies are awesome and awfully cute.  And dreadfully addictive.
7. Same goes for baby carriers.
8. You’ll find yourself doing things that you never planned on for the sake of your sanity.  For us, this was using disposable nappies fulltime for the first six weeks and introducing a dummy.  Still unhappy about the latter, but it keeps us sane and Liam happy.
9. For me, trying to get any work other than caring for the baby and looking after the house (a bare minimum of that) is impossible for the first few months.
10. That said, I’ve managed to do all of my judging work for the Australian Shadows Awards, and have started to plan a new novel in the last month.  I plan on returning to slush reading soon as well as trying to get more fun reading in.

Things have been quiet on this blog, mostly for the obvious reason that I haven’t been doing any writing.  Or anything writing-related at all, unless you count reading for the Australian Shadows Award.  And apart from that reading, I haven’t been reading anything much at all.  I haven’t even really been reading my usual blogs.

And up there is the reason why.  Liam will be six weeks old next week (already!).  These weeks have been difficult, but in general, things feel like they’re getting a little easier.  Liam is settling into a loose routine now (which I’m certain is going to change, now that I’ve said that).   I’m still sleep deprived, since he’s still waking a lot at night, but it doesn’t feel quite as bad as it was in the beginning.

And now as I type that, he’s half waking up from his nap and grizzling.  Naps during the day are glorious things – I look forward to them getting a little more predictable and longer (he’s a fan of the cat nap) so I can start getting some writing done again.  That will probably require some better sleep, too.  Ah well, it’ll all come eventually.

Jilly is so far not overly impressed

I’ll be trying to catch up on the internets a bit, but likely won’t be able to do much.  If there’s anything that’s happened over the last week that I should know about, comment!

Am still in hospital at present and posting via the iPhone, will be making more detailed posts when we’re back at home.

He was born at 11:01 am on the 2nd December 2009 weighing 7lb 16oz and measuring 51.5cm.