"Why don't you come to bed?" This is what my wife said to me at around 11:00 last night. Sweet, I thought. "Where's the baby?" I asked, looking forward to sleeping in my bed while it is dark outside. "She's sleeping in her bunny bassinet in the living room, I'll just move her to the bassinet in our bedroom" my wife foolishly replied. It was at this moment that I abandoned hope of sleeping tonight. "Bad idea" I Nostradamusly said, "She's asleep and if you move her upstairs she will no longer be asleep."
The only solace I can take out of this evening, is that I was right. Wow, do I wish I was wrong.
2 1/2 hours later, I am still trying to get that baby back to sleep. For reasons passing understanding, I am the one doing it. The one that knew not to move the baby. During one of her fits of crying while I was preparing her a bottle, my wife started to come downstairs. I could have been grateful for the help, but instead I was curt and dismissive and told her to go back to bed. After all, how I can hold this over her if she is up with me. Yes, this is incredibly petty, but dammit I was right. DON'T MOVE THE BABY ONCE SHE IS ASLEEP!
I guess only the dulcet tones of Mace Windu will get her to go back to sleep now...
My poor wife just had to get out of the house and go to Starbucks, which to her probably felt like a weekend at the beach, to get away from this...
All of you moms, and quite a few dads, out there have dealt with this. All you want to do is sit down for five minutes of peace and quiet without being interrupted by irrational child babbling.
Yes we all love our children very much, but damnit all if they aren't annoying as hell. Yes, I know that's a Lego. No, don't put your head in there. Or your legs. Yes, I know you have a bed. Yes, I know you went to the Splash Park yesterday... because I was with you. No, I will not spell "hunting" right now because I am trying to eat my dinner (dinner now lasts 8.5 hours because of all the interruptions). Oh great, the baby is crying again for one of her many unknown reasons.
Yes. All of this (and more) did just happen. With that, I'm going to get a 12 pack of Summer Shandy because I just saw a commercial for it and it looked really really good to me.
While my new little bundle of joy continues her vampire and Slaughter schedule (let's see who gets that reference), my four year old blew me away this week. My mom had gotten him a new book that he is obsessed with. It's an interactive book that when a certain phrase is read, a character in the story will interact with the person reading the story. My four year old read the book, by himself, from start to finish! I was blown away and so proud. Yay! I must be doing something right! Just to be sure that it wasn't a fluke, he then read a hand written message in a card from his aunt that he had never seen before. Boosh. Confirmation that my kid is a frickin' genius, and that I am a better parent (or not?) than the parents of this kid.
Do you remember that scene from The Blair Witch Project when the idiots lost in the woods realized that night was coming and they were going have to stay in the woods again? That is what we feel like when the sun goes down around here. (By the way, the scene with the children laughing and the hands shaking the tent is still hella creepy) We know that we are in for another long night of inconsolable baby crying.
Tonight was no exception. We had it all, including our first middle of the night trip to the drug store to get the stop the farting drops. Two hours later that little girl is finally asleep which begs the question, what the hell am I still typing for... g'night.
At midnight last night, we fed the baby sticking to the every 2 1/2 to 3 hour feeding schedule that nightmares are made of like the good parents that we are. Usually, the baby being satisfied, goes right back to sleep. Not last night though...
1:14 AM...Wake up to screaming baby, pick her up, she falls asleep, put her back in bassinet.
1:29 AM... Wake up to screaming baby, pick her up, she falls asleep, put her back in bassinet.
1:34 AM... Wake up to screaming baby, pick her up, she falls asleep, put her back in bassinet.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
1:44 AM... Wake up to screaming baby, pick her up, she falls asleep, put her back in bassinet.
2:02 AM... Wake up to screaming baby, pick her up, swaddle her so tight the only thing missing is a sarcophagus, put her back in bassinet.
Finally she stays asleep for longer than 15 minutes. I thought it was my skills of a daddy, but it turns out she kept waking herself up for a specific reason...
This. Child. Won't. Stop. Farting.
Her farts were waking her up. The only thing I can deduce is that my superior swaddling skills made a swaddle so tight that it closed off some interior valve or something and it allowed her to get some sleep.
And oh man the smell. Baby farts are up there with dog farts in terms of pungency. Think of Sex Panther, by Odeon.
What I really think is that she just got used to it. Like her hiccups. She's so small, they shake her entire body, but she is able to sleep through them. This is now the same for her farts. This continued all day until this evening when she finally pooped.
We know this is a by-product of the formula supplement and that it will (hopefully) stop once she can go exclusively to breast milk. To mitigate it, we are now burping her every five minutes while feeding her so she lets go some of that gas before it is allowed to... fester. She is so small but can produce such a stink. My wife says she takes after me. I think she's probably right.
Today I went to my office to clean out my desk and say goodbye to all of my now former co-workers. Some of the items that I found in various drawers and cabinets were:
The Leisure Suit Larry PS2 game that I let someone borrow probably 6 years ago
The very first model of XM radio and the dock
3 CD players
4 different kinds of headphones
8 uncashed winning scratch off tickets
It was a bittersweet feeling, cleaning out my desk, as I have devoted the past 10 years of my life to my career at this company. I survived the recession of 2008 in which approximately 20% of the company was laid off and the office that I was working in was closed down. I liked my career (for the most part.) Like all careers/jobs there are good days and bad. But if I am being completely honest, lately there were more bad days than good. The worst of it was simply getting to the office. Since my old office was closed, I was transferred to an office that is 60 miles from my house. In DC metro area traffic. Needless to say I will NOT miss my commute.
I am still "officially" an employee and will start working part time many, many months from now, once I have a better feel for this stay at home dad thing. Basically, I'm hedging my bets. If this stay at home dad gig doesn't work out, I can go back to my old career. That, however, is the worst case scenario. I would much rather be at home screwing up my kids than sitting in a cube making other people richer. I think most people would.
My life has completely changed from an average of 3x8 hour blocks (work, not work, sleep) to 8x3 hour blocks. We are still on a schedule of having to feed this little girl every three hours to keep her weight up regardless of whether she is sleeping or not. The struggle I am having is breaking down the three hours into useful periods of time.
I have found myself devoting each three hour block to a specific activity. For example: three hours for cleaning some part of the house then feed the baby. Three hours of sleep then feed the baby. Three hours of playing and watching TV/movies with the four year old then feed the baby. Three hours of PS4 then feed the baby. Rinse, recycle, repeat.
Of course, this is way oversimplifying the process, as other things do get done in the three hour blocks such as eating, laundry, dishes, and putting away the mess that the four year old makes. I have said from the beginning that I will not let the simple cleaning tasks like the dishes, laundry, and four year old toys all over the place take over the house and so far so good.
I don't know if most parents have ever been tempted to try formula or not, but I have some simple advice:
It tastes awful. Don't drink it. Not even on a dare. You know those horrific shots that your buddies bought you for your 21st birthday? Those taste like the sweet nectar of life compared to this stuff. We are using at as supplement for the baby girl until mommy's milk is fully in, or until the doctor tells us to stop. Hopefully that will be today and I can put the taste of this stuff out of my mind. Forever. Just seeing the bottles reminds me of the taste.
Apparently, after checking some other daddy blogs, this stuff tastes the best out of the usual suspects of formula. Oh sweet baby Jesus, I don't even want to imagine what the others must taste like then. I still can't get the scent of washed up on the beach jellyfish baking in the sun out of my nostrils after just a little sample.
The baby, however, seems to love it, which just makes me believe that she is starving and doesn't care what it tastes like. To me it feels like we're torturing the poor child. Like making her watch highlights from the 1975 Stanley Cup Final (the last one the Flyers won - 14,270 days ago as of today, but who's counting). Or she just doesn't have anything to compare it to. After all, how does she really know it tastes bad if that's all she really has ever tasted?
This is a conspiracy. Somehow babies have a way of communicating with each other. Some sort of ESP that only babies 2 months and younger have. This extra sense allows them to know when it is exactly the most inconvenient for them to be awake and mad. Really, really, mad. For this little girl, that time has been between 2 AM and 4 AM. Prime mommy and daddy sleeping time. At the moment, my poor wife the feeding trough is upstairs trying in vain to get that little girl to calm down enough to eat something while I type this. It's one of the times when I am completely useless, not having the built-in food supply that women have (I don't know you all live with those bodies, by the way). We both know, we being my wife and I, that this little girl will be completely agreeable for the rest of the day and that we just have to get through this melt down. But the next 2 AM is only 22 hours away...
4 AM EDIT... I kid you not she calmed down so much and is asleep so deeply that we cannot get her awake enough to eat and it happened right at 4 AM. Conspiracy.
Why oh why must every time I change this little girl's diaper she decides it is then the perfect opportunity to pee and poop? Is this her way of showing me how much she loves me? By showering me with these delightful presents?
Since we are feeding her every 2 1/2 hours, I check her diaper every time before she eats. She is so tiny it is really hard to tell if her diaper is wet by just looking at it or feeling it. Changing her diaper before she eats is also the way I get her to wake up, because she literally sleeps for the entire 2 hours after she is done eating and before the next time. I don't know if this is why she decides to go as soon as I take off the diaper, since she is just waking up, but she hasn't given presents to my wife yet. I think that this must mean she likes me and is very comfortable around me. Yes, that is what we'll go with.
This baby girl is screaming so much you'd think I was forcing her to be a Flyers fan. She only calms down when she is being held, which is sweet, but I don't want to inevitably crush her when I fall asleep and roll over.
And then I remembered to swaddle her. That made all of the difference in the world. Yes, yes, yes, I know babies, especially newborns like to be swaddled. I'm a little tired and didn't think of it right away.
I guess I should also mention that I also have a 4 year old boy. He is the sweetest, calmest, independent, child I could possibly imagine, which makes me pretty sure that my wife has a boyfriend out there somewhere cause I have no idea how my genes made such a great kid. He was very excited to meet his new baby sister... until he actually met her. The best way I can describe his initial reaction to her once we brought her home was disappointment. I'm pretty sure that his 4 year old brain didn't quite comprehend what a baby actually is and I think that he thought that he was going to get a playmate out of this deal.
The hardest part about this for me is finding a way to devote enough time to my son since I am also responsible for the care of a newborn. While my wife is home for the first ten weeks, this shouldn't be too terribly hard, but I also don't want to be so overbearing in my attention to him because I am thinking about if I am giving him enough attention (wow that is an awkward sentence). Most of the time, if he is working on a puzzle on the floor or something and I try to do it with him, he tells me to go back on the couch or go downstairs so that he can do it by himself. However, I don't want to have him create a feeling of resentment toward the new baby. I'm sure other parents out there with multiple children have gone through this. It's really difficult.
As the first day home with the new baby went on, my son began to open up a bit more toward the baby. He asked to hold her and we involved him in some small tasks that revolve around her such as putting her dirty burp cloth or blanket into her hamper. He seemed to respond to this pretty well. He is also fascinated by what I call her various places to nap, such as her bassinet, swing, and bouncy chair. He kept telling his preschool teacher that he was going to put her (the baby) in her bouncy chair. I even took apart part of the swing so he could see how it worked and told him how he used to swing in it as a baby, but would only be happy in it if it was on setting number 6, or setting "DEAR GOD HOW ARE YOU NOT FLYING OUT THAT THING!"
He has a tendency to talk about how exciting something is or was, but when that event that he describes actually occurs or has occurred, he's not as enthusiastic. In other words, his memory of the event is better than the event itself. If a stranger on the street were to ask him about being a big brother, he would beam with pride and say how happy he is to be one. I'm sure over time he will be, but right now I just hope I am not screwing him up too badly. As long as he doesn't end up a Flyers fan I've done my job.
Since I've already been through this once, I figured that the second time around would be much easier. Wow, did I forget some things.
One, infants have no interest in helping you dress them. It's probably easier to dress a cat than an infant. And they're strong. Those little arms going into sleeves are like the same polar ends of magnets.
Two, as soon as infants have all clothing off, including diapers, that is when their tiny brain gets a signal to unleash all bodily functions. Pea, poo, spit up, I've gotten it all today. At the very moment I was about to put her new diaper on her is when she decided to pee all over her changing table, marking it like a wolf marks its territory.
Three, all that they do is sleep. While this may sound nice, the spit up reflex does not shut off while sleeping. I swear her body produces more milk in her stomach because there is no way that she eats as much as comes out of her.
Four, the joy of changing baby clothes that have been spit up on. I have already discussed the joy of putting clothes on her, but now add spit up. An olympic event should be trying to get clothes covered in spit up off of a baby and not getting any of that spit up on the baby. I failed. Miserably. Her entire left side of her head was basically spackled in spit up like mortar for a brick.
In the first 8 hours of being home, we have gone through three outfits, three changing pad covers/blankets, and enough burp cloths that a quilt could be knitted out of them. And I couldn't be happier.
At approximately 3:00 AM on Monday morning, June 16, I officially retired from the world of commuting to work and began my stint as a full time stay at home dad. It was at this time, since I was still awake playing PS4 like a goon, that I heard someone upstairs flush the toilet. Curious to see if it was my 8 month pregnant wife or my 4 year old son, I ventured upstairs to see who it was. It was my wife, and she greeted me with a "Happy Father's Day!" Confused, I said, "Yeah, I know, it was yesterday." It was then that I started to notice that some things were amiss. Especially when my wife said, "No, you dope, my water broke."
PANIC ENSUES
We were completely caught with our pants down (especially true about my wife, see water breaking) since this baby wasn't supposed to be here for another month. Instead of doing the things I should I have been doing, like packing our bags for the hospital, I decided instead to call all of my immediate family to let them know. Hey, I was excited. Eventually I got my act together and arranged for a friend to watch my 4 year old while my mother-in-law drove the hour to my place from hers.
Fast forward, since there really is not much to talk about with the delivery, we actually slept through most of the labor thanks to drugs. Baby is here. Born at 1:48 PM weighing in at 6 lbs 3 oz and 20 inches long, Carolyn Florence Clawson has arrived. And I'm overjoyed.
During the next 48 hours that we stayed in the hospital, I came home a couple of times to do some of the things that have yet to be done, like putting the bassinet together and, well, finding the rest of our baby gear. After passing the "car seat test" (it turns out babies born prior to 37 weeks need to pass this test) and getting over some minor blood sugar issues. Carolyn is ready to go home.
Side note: For those who say that staying in the hospital is a good thing because it is your time to rest while the nurses take care of everything, you couldn't be more wrong. The nurses do a fabulous job and it is a pretty thankless profession, but they are the queens of interruptions. As soon as we would get that baby to sleep, here they come with something to poke her with and wake her back up. Every. Damn. Time. The car seat test that I mentioned earlier? Yep. Done at 4 AM. Because mommy and daddy are wide awake playing Chinese checkers at 4 AM instead of getting the so-called rest that staying in the hospital provides.
The drive home, while being the most terrifying ordeal for anyone behind the wheel with their newborn in the backseat, was uneventful and now the baby is at home. And I get to take over.
