Evening of Day 3 - The demands of a child are simple, we were just taught at the hospital over the past two days. There are four simple needs of a baby: feeding, burping, changing and holding. It seems like every nurse and doctor and pediatrician and cleaning lady and meal delivery person had their own lessons for us. One told us the best way to burp was to hold the child over your shoulder so that its stomach is on the top of your scapula so as to exert pressure on it and facilitate gas emission. Another recounted a story of a young mother who did exactly that without seeing that her infant had become blue in the face and was choking. Tales of wonder and woe.

Here's something I never knew: a) a baby girl is born with all the eggs she will ever menstruate, and; b) within the first 3 days of life, the baby girl actually passes blood as part of a false menstruation (I'm still trying to find the medical definition of what actually happens). Well today our little one passed her bloody show. A small little dab of pink on one of her 8 diapers today (yes, I'm a pro at changing already).

Sitting here at home contemplating lifestyle of work, family, and play. It hits me that there are indeed ways to manage the balance between them all.

But then just as I'm thinking about how exactly this balance can work, and how I can influence and control it ... (I'm sitting here in the kitchen, at the opposite end of the apartment from the bedroom, where Michelle has been lulling Lian to sleep) ... I hear on the baby monitor that I have here on the kitchen table, Michelle's voice. "Dean?" she asks out loud. "Yes, Mimi" I call out down the hall. "I think she's the most beautiful baby girl in the world." That balance will simply be.



Day 3 - "...the most beautiful girl in the world." Michelle Jeong, 9:53pm.