On the egg-cellence of monotremes

First, as they say on that annoying NPR show, let's do the numbers.

Number of ounces Oscar's gained in a week: 2
Number of pounds his mother has lost since giving birth: 47

That first number is a bit disappointing after his mammoth weight gain the previous week (he left the hospital at 7 pounds 9 ounces and was up to 8 pounds four days later). But everything else is going swimmingly -- he's waking up and getting the hang of this breastfeeding business, and of course, he now lets us know when he's hungry. So we're redoubling our vigilance about feeding times, and we have to hold off on starting bottle feeding until he starts packing on the pounds.

As for Jen, she wouldn't believe the scale, so they tried another. Sure enough. Forty-seven pounds. The OB/GYN said all that weight was fluids that build up over the course of the pregnancy to protect and sustain the baby. She's just delighted that she can see her ankles again. Her poor dogs and calves swelled up so much that by the third trimester, she looked like the Michelin Man from the knees down. She gained two shoe sizes and had to keep 'em elevated whenever possible.

Radicalized by this experience, Jen is campaigning for our species to evolve and join the monotremes, mammals like echindas, or spiny anteaters, and platypuses (platypii?) that lay eggs instead of laboring through painful live births with impossibly long gestation cycles. She remains agnostic on the question of duckbills.

Yesterday, Oscar met his great-grandmother, or GiGi, as she may prefer to be called. Here he is with Gramma Sue and GiGi Ruth:


Proof positive that this kid has some great genes. At 89, Ruth gets more done before breakfast than I do all year.