It has been seven days since Sasha was born. She is still alive and breathing, and I count that as a success. Though some challenges are different from what I expected, overall it has actually been easier than I had thought.

As the boxes and boxes of baby stuff continued to overwhelm the limited space in our condo over the past month or so before Sasha was born, it dawned on us that it wasn’t going to just be the two of us plus a tiny little baby. The reality of the situation was that we had a new roommate moving in and we needed to make space for a whole person’s worth of stuff and we were going to have to get rid of and rearrange a bunch of our own stuff to make room for the baby. Cupboards were cleared, books and DVDs given away, and the craps table (around which my friends spent hours throwing dice many years ago) was converted into a crap table (AKA diaper changing station).

And after bringing Sasha home from the hospital, it became even more clear we were bringing an actual person into our home. For the past week we’ve had to try to get to know each other. Figure out each other’s likes and dislikes. Learn how to communicate with each other and work through misunderstandings. Yes, even though she cannot speak or read or write, she is definitely a real person with preferences and opinions and desires all her own, and that to me has been a surprising and humbling revelation.

It must be by divine design that newborn baby poop doesn’t smell like regular people poop. Although changing diapers seems to be Sasha’s least favorite activity, it is for now a duty I actually perform with joy, despite her rather loud screams of protest. Who knows how that might change in the future, especially as the smells begin to turn for the worse.

We’ve managed to fall into a kind of routine and she seems to be sleeping in stretches of two to three hours at a time, which seems bearable, and not too overly taxing on us so far. Challenging as it may have have been, this past week has been a complete joy for me. As for my wife? Well, maybe she needs her own blog to express how she feels as I’m sure it hasn’t been as easy for her as it has been for me. But I am impressed by her and proud of her and the way she has worked so tirelessly to keep our baby happy (and nourished!). I can only imagine how exhausting it must be for her and yet she keeps on keeping on.

But for now, she is so beautiful to me. Her facial expressions melt my heart. The way she flails her hands and arms around due to a complete lack of control over gross motor skills and even her cries are endearing to me and I can’t help but laugh. I never wanted to engage in “baby talk” or speak with that annoyingly high pitched inflection that a lot of people use with babies… and I still don’t do that (I think…) but having said that — with Sasha I just can’t help but sing whenever I talk to her.

I thank God for bringing us this far, and I look forward to what the future may bring!