September was the slowest, longest, fastest month we’ve had all year. Our days exist in three hour increments, the feed-change-sleep cycle over and over and over and over. We barely left the house, in fact, I was looking at our month-end budget and we didn’t fill up with gasoline all month, until two days ago when we made a trip up to northern Michigan to look at a house. This month was our lowest spending of the whole year (and next month will be our highest when all the medical bills hit).

Here’s a sweet photo of father and son that I took while we were still in the hospital! Kyle has been a fantastic dad and partner, I couldn’t ask for a more supportive spouse to raise a child with. I don’t know how we would have survived this month without him! Watching him play with baby Atlas* is the sweetest thing in the world.

This baby was so wiggly in utero, it’s no surprise that he never stops moving now that he’s on the outside. He’s a squirmy little caterpillar in all his photos.

Kyle’s been handling the lack of sleep pretty well, but he’s feeling it. This week he took a shower and got ready to shave, then felt his chin and realized it was smooth – he’d already showered and shaved earlier that morning! I’ve been a little worse, the quality of my day definitely depends on the quality of my sleep the night before. I’ve had a couple days with searing headaches due to sleep deprivation, but there have been more good days than bad. Figuring out baby-wearing has been a huge help, I can get things done around the house while making sure Atlas is safe and sound!

You’d think it would be enough to try to keep one living thing going this month, but instead I’ve been accumulating new plants as well. Right before Atlas was born I got some inch plant cuttings from a neighbor. Those got nice and leggy after I potted them, so I just cut them down and put them in a spot with more light.

Then Amy offered me a cutting of her variegated pothos, plus she got some neon pothos cuttings from a coworker. So now I’m working on keeping those alive too!

Right before the baby was born, I gifted myself a new camera lens instead of scheduling newborn photos. It’s been great! I’ve got 11gb of baby photos already, plus my new lens helped turn this goofball look like a regal lioness!

These two birds moved in to our neighborhood. Are they doves? Pigeons? (Okay, a quick internet search tells me they are white pigeons aka release doves, they are frequently released at events in lieu of actual doves because doves can’t care for themselves in the wild whereas pigeons do just fine. So these birds were probably released at a wedding and are now wild. The more you know!) The neighbor kids set out birdseed for them, which is really cute. However, these pigeons hang out under our car pretty frequently, so now I live in fear of backing out of the driveway and hearing a THUNK followed by a plume of white feathers.

Obviously we’re a little home-bound lately, obsessing over the local birds. At the end of the month we headed up north for our first big trip with baby, which went pretty well (and by that I mean I was crying-exhausted at the end of the day, and the following day was pretty much nonstop tears from how tired I was). BUT I did manage to get the first me-time with one of my favorite hobbies. I popped the drone in the air to check out the beginning of the fall colors!

Atlas was along for the flight, strapped to my chest in the stretchy wrap, so we posed for a drone selfie! I should note that Kyle makes sure I get some baby-free time when I need it, but this is the first time we’ve been out of the house and I could do something fun that I enjoyed pre-baby.

This month has been busy, but we haven’t gotten much done besides keep our infant happy, healthy and thriving. Seems like a pretty typical introduction to life with a newborn!

*To protect and respect our son’s privacy, on the blog and social media our baby will be Atlas!