He Smiled!

Gorgeous photo of baby Jonah by Erin Langstraat (thank you Erin!)

And not just one of those pre-blow-out smiles that turns into a scowl and ends with a haz-mat cleanup. Jonah and I were sitting under the Mulberry trees at sunset (so romantic, in that babylove kinda' way) and I was telling him all about neighborhood dogs and noisy teenagers. Well, one thing led to another, and there I was tickling his ribs.

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Then it happened.

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His nose scrunched. His eyes squinted. His lips spread and... wham! Baby smile- a for real, beautiful, gummy smile. It faded, and there was no encore, but it was a thing to behold. The crazy thing is that earlier today I was explaining to him that Ellie had smiled at me at 13 days old (we had been on our first outing to In-n-Out Burger, who wouldn't smile?), and that he could not be outdone by his sister. I guess he'd had time to think it over and decided I was right (Good job, son. Mama is always right).

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I find myself alone in the house for the first time with baby Jonah. Hormones and an ubber-quiet house are not a great combo for me.
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I am alone because I wore myself out today. I wore myself out because we went out to lunch at Dianda's today, then to look for a bra that can handle my new hooters. We had no luck. Instead we used a gift card at a screaming JC Penny's sale and left with 8 outfits for ten cents (that's after the gift card, but still!). We tried Target, but apparently women who shop there are even less likely to nurse than the Penny's crowd.
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I showed them. I parked it in the cafe and had my own nursing protest (actually, I just fed Jonah discreetly, but I was ready in case someone decided to take me on... I know the California State law protecting a woman's right to breastfeed verbatim. Sadly, no one has ever taken me on).
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After we gathered our other goslings from school, we came home and Jonah and I crashed. When we woke up Jonah said he would rather kick it at home with mama than to go to the Cub Scout rain-gutter regatta, and so we find ourselves here. Alone.
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Um, yeah, only now I am awake, but Jonah is very asleep. I don't do really well when I am alone, especially not post-partum alone. The waters of after-babydom are usually a bit rocky for me. After Ethan was born I had severe post partum depression, and it was 17 months before I got any help. With Adam, I armed myself in advance with medicine and support, and combined with his amazing birth, I was blissed out for weeks. Then the girls came, and thinking I was going to handle it just fine, I went it alone. Bad idea.
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Several veteran mamas around me tell me that my little boat is rocking at a pretty average rate. Apparently bursting into tears several times a day can be considered perfectly normal. It still scares me a little, though, because I think that I might be at the beginning of a slippery, down-hill slope; one that starts with a few crying jags and ends with me knocking on strangers doors at midnight in my skivies asking to borrow a cup of sanity.
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As I sat out under the trees with Jonah, basking in the glow of his fading smile, I began to weep at the thought of him being my last, sweet, yummy baby.
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Please, somebody tell how very normal that is.