The thing about Pumpkin is that he is small. No amount of recorded statistics showing that he is in fact some 10% larger than Olive was at this age are sufficient to counteract the straightforward observation that where she is a child, child-sized, he is just a little nugget.

I'm having some trouble coming up with an appropriate description which conveys the scale. Olive has certain stuffed animals which are larger in every dimension than Pumpkin? True, but they can make some big stuffed animals. Let's put it like this: Pumpkin's entire head is smaller than the palm of my hand.

Perhaps this is true of babies in general. For all their metaphysical weight, their actual size is extremely compact. Having recently witnessed a birth, I can only be in favor of this. Even so, it feels like somehow I've forgotten how tiny babies actually are.

We brought him, and Christina, home from the hospital today. Everything is more or less as it should be with both of them; they were only there for the standard German post-natal observation period. Olive is delighted to be a big sister, and is extremely interested in carrying her little brother, and in gently stroking his cheek. I worry that at some point she'll resent the attention he demands, regret that she's not an only child any longer. Still, that hasn't happaned yet, at least.

Pumpkin, for now, seems to have a very simple control algorithm: if hungry, eat. If full, sleep. If cold, complain. So far there are no additional visible states.

Nothing relaxes like a baby dozing on one's chest.