Lessons from George W Bush

The impressive thing about George W Bush, you may say the only impressive thing, is that he lowered expectations so much that anything better than catastrophe was celebrated as success. Ayako and I were very much from the Managed Expectations school during pregnancy. Unrealistically high expectations could only lead to disappointment, or so we thought. Little did we know of the powers of babies to woo their parents into labouring on their behalf. Great expectations, it turns out, would not have led to disappointment at all.

Sawa is one week old!

Sawa’s first week was pretty standard for Mum and baby. Ayako was in considerable pain and having trouble peeing. Sawa was a bit dopey and hard to rouse at first, and then frequently irate at the breast because colostrum, of which there was lots, didn’t flow fast enough for her liking. These problems resolved fairly quickly, but even at their worst, we were a bit surprised by how little we resented our efforts to bring her into the world. She’s a charmer. More photos illustrating her charmingness are here.