Tipping the scales

An acquaintance of mine told me this past weekend that the scales begin to tip with your newborn. She says you may feel, and I do, that you are just giving and giving to this little one and not getting too much back, but eventually, as they get older and more interactive with you, you begin to receive more than you are giving.
I feel like the scale has begun to tip today.
It's raining and Cooper and I are stuck inside. I have been watch him sleep so soundly and I feel and overwhelming wave of love. It's like nothing I have ever felt.
I kept thinking something was wrong because I had read and heard of all these woman who, upon laying eyes on their newborn are instantly connected with them. I did not feel that way I'm sorry to say. In fact, it is still surreal that we have a child. Also, for me, those first few weeks were scary, and exhausting and just otherworldly, I just did not seem to connect with Cooper in the way that I had heard and read.
But today, something feels like it has changed. He is now 11 weeks old, we have spent just about every second of every day together of those 11 weeks and I am just now feeling, or allowing myself to relax enough to feel the love that is there.
He is beautiful and wonderful. As my good friend Hammer would say, "I'm quite smitten with this little boy".

How to take a walk

Cooper and I try and get out of the house at least every other day for a walk of some sort. I load him up in the Ergo (a type of baby carrier) and we head off. Some criteria for the walk:

• Has to be a nice day
• Somewhere that is perceived as safe (in my neighborhood I would head toward the hills).
• He has to be all juiced up on milk or formula
• The route has to have an easy out in case he freaks out or blows out his diaper.

Once we have all this in place we head off.
He typically falls asleep and if I don't make a phone call to catch up with someone, I do the following:

• Say hello to everyone I pass, surprisingly most folks do not reciprocate.
• Pet as many kittys as possible. We have our favorites that come out to see us on certain routes. I got this from my friend Rachel.
• Check out everyones houses, pretend I live there, make up stories about the people that do (I got this from my mom!!)

Today we did a modified loop, but I did hoof it up Oakland Ave which is a killer hill. Surprisingly we did not see any kittys, but we saw tons of folks working on their houses, dragging in xmas trees and putting up lights and wreaths.
We also saw a huge hawk that flew over us, it was pretty cool, maybe he was looking for a kitty too?
I'm sure I'm making this sound more complicated then it really is, bottom line, we get outside and get some fresh air. It's great.