Holding Pattern

I held Henrik today!  He is SO SMALL!!!  I've held a 2 1/2 lb baby so I know small, but when the child is south of two Justin Alberses, that's a whole other ball game.  He wiggled around and clutched at some chest hair, but on the whole he was pretty mellow.  Like with Anna, Henrik deeply desaturated toward the end of our skin to skin time.  It was great to hold him.  It's really hard to describe.  I remember what it felt like to hold Anders, but I don't remember him being so very small.  Places on my body where I remembered feeling arms and legs from the end of our skin to skin time with Anders, there was but a warm blanket. 
We are starting over.  During the deep desaturation I felt it again, we are completely and totally starting over.  Its sort of like teaching a class for a year.  You have corrected some grievous errors, and have their writing up to your standards, then the school year is over, they leave your class, and then you start over with a new class that makes all the same mistakes as last year's class.  So we start the process again as parents of another son attending NIC University.  The nurse gave me a mirror to watch Henrik as he was on my chest, but I moved it up to watch his O2 levels.  When Anna was giving me a look like she accidentally ate whipped cream, I just had to look.  The nurse scolded me for my breach of protocol because their whole thing is that the parent just enjoys the kangaroo care and ignores the stats.  I played along with Anders, but this isn't my first rodeo, as I told her, and those stats matter regardless of what they say.  Heck, anyone who sees the facebook pictures can see my veteran status with my Favre-ian beard. 
My mother in law wanted me to mention the hospital gown they made me wear. It was allegedly one size fits all.  Instead, I looked like a time traveling John Tesh who went back to 1983 to ease superpower tensions through Piano Diplomacy.  In all seriousness, I was hulking out of the arms holes.  They might have to replace it soon.
The other interesting thing was meeting our neighbor Kristina.  She walks around the neighborhood every day, multiple times per day.  I've seen her and waved consistently over the past few months, but today something changed and she initiated a stop and chat.  One of my weaknesses is that I encourage talkative, eccentric people to keep talking.  I learned that Kristina left Poland 33 years ago, which make her departure date 1980, and if you know your Cold War history that's when the spit was hitting the fan in Polska with the striking dock workers in Gdansk and the Red Army threatening to invade.  She has two sons, one in England and one in Sugar Land.  She watches Chinese TV with her Taiwanese daughter in law, and her grandsons do not visit her enough. 
The reason that she stopped me was because she thought "you look like Polak"  When I grow my beard, I do tend to look a bit more Slavic, and that's the reason she decided to take a chance and talk to me.  Her English was quite broken, but she said that she had been around the world in her many years and she believed that Polish men were the most handsome in the world.  She also had a high regard for Hungarians, considering their historical connections with Poland through their shared monarchy.  Kristina had a low opinion of the Czechs, however: "Czech's HATE Poles. My neighbor is Czech, she married a Czech. now they are divorced!"  The implication being that by marrying a Czech she ruined her life.  I don't really understand the animosity.  As a Polish American, Prague is one of my favorite cities in the world.  Now it's no Krakow, mind you, but it's still pretty awesome. 
So Henrik, welcome to the Eagles' Nest, you come from handsome stock.  Keep it mellow.