Heh. It’s my duty as a parent to troll my kid whenever possible. It makes all the difficult parts of parenthood worth it. 
Never let him know you’re winging it. EVER!
I hope his hair sticks around! Every nurse in NICU (hypoglycemia, short-term stay with an IV) was gushing about how gorgeous his hair is, and sneaking over to pet him. Does the hair usually fall out in the first month or two? I’d be so sad!
We had the name picked out a while back. I hesitated near the end, because it’s SO popular on the name trend lists, but William is an important name in both our famiiles and we wanted a way to honor that without adding yet one more William to the mix. Enough mail gets sent to the wrong Williams already!
He’s doing great - our worst problem so far is that he’s got horrible gas pains, so he’s awake and crying through that a lot. Oh well, could be a lot worse. I’m counting my blessings here, and he’s a BIG one.
(Sorry it took me so long to reply again - I mostly use my tablet now because I can poke at it with one finger while feeding the baby, and I couldn’t remember my password. All fixed now. :))
Congratulations on your new little love bug! Can’t beat that new-baby smell.
It might. usually the hair, if they’re born with hair, is dark and then falls out and then they get the blond in. or if they’re born with blind, it’s usually this, um, baby fine almost transparent stuff. Thick and blond at birth is rare enough that I can’t venture a guess as to what it will do!
I had one friend with a little girl born with jet black hair which didn’t fall out, but the hair behind it grew in blond! Looked like her hair had been dipped in an inkwell. Newborn hair is pretty unpredictable.
The Elder Ottlet had really awful gas and/or colic (it’s been 27 years and I’ve kind of blocked it from my memory). The solution we finally came up with was to put her in her car seat, put the car seat on top of the dryer, and run a load. Almost always calmed her down and put her to sleep within five or ten minutes.
YMMV, of course, but it might be worth a try.
For my daughter, it was car seat and a drive around the neighborhood. Gasoline was way cheaper in 1990, though.
Congratulations!!!
For the gas pains - if you’re breastfeeding, which it sounds like you are, then you need to drink fennel tea. Like four mugs a day. It fixed Thing 2’s gas pains in 48 hours flat (although you need to keep drinking it for the next month or two, obviously). I wish to God I’d known about it with Thing 1, instead of going through weeks of horrible evenings.
I believe Mother’s Milk tea has fennel in it. I lived on that stuff.
It has lots of great anti-gas (“carminative”) and anti-nausea herbs in it - that also just happen to stimulate lactation. I haven’t breastfed in years, but I still keep a box of it around for stomachaches and general indigestion. People look at me funny when they’re over with a stomachache and I pull out the lactation tea. 
I don’t like the taste of fennel but if it helps my boy get some sleep instead of wailing and curling up his little body, I’ll give it a try. We’re seeing the pediatrician today because he’s exactly as bad as he was 2 weeks ago despite doing everything they told us to. Not sure what they can do next, but they told us to come in.
Good luck, and I hope his tummy - and your sleep cycle - are back to normal soon. Congrats!
The tea I drank was straight-up fennel seeds, nothing else - the brand is Clipper. I have no idea whether the seeds versus the fruit that’s in the Mother’s Milk tea makes any difference, but I am evangelical about this stuff.
Since it doesn’t have anything added for flavour, it doesn’t taste like much of anything - just vaguely herbal. I got so used to it that I still drink it now, even though the baby’s 14 months old and her digestion seems just fine 
Loads of luck. Sorting out the gas pains (and they will end soon, one way or another) really makes the whole thing so much easier for everyone.
Congratulations Antigen!
Fennel seed is the dry fruit, just some call it one and others the other.
Gas update - his doctor gave us Zantac to try, and it’s made a world of difference. We’re not sleeping much more, but he is, and I’m very relieved. Also he’s almost 9lbs already! And I think maybe he looked at me yesterday!
Keeping the fennel tea mentally bookmarked in case I need it. Thanks for the tips, all!
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
I’m just now seeing this. Sooooo happy for you, you waited SO long!!! He’s gorgeous
Congrats!!
Thanks!
In case anyone wants an update, his tummy troubles are almost completely resolved. He’s insisting on being held sitting up, he’s constantly chatting at us and the ceiling fan, and he’s drooling through bibs at an alarming rate.
Wow! He looks so kid-like! (As opposed to baby-like.) The hair and the outfit make him look like he should be heading off to work.
StG
OMG what a cutie!