The first week and a half with Reid have been amazing. It's the most difficult work I've ever done, bar none. And it's incredibly rewarding, though I am very, very tired.
As per an agreement K and I forged following the first weeks of our life AR (anno Reid), I am essentially 100% in charge of Reid, save for the creation of breast milk, a task for which I am woefully ill-equipped. K makes milk at work and only breastfeeds the boy at night between 6 or so and bedtime. I take care of the nights, waking up (once or twice, usually) and feeding him bottled breast milk. Our home is busting with little bags and bottles of K's milk. It's like a frat house, only with milk instead of beer.
The first few days were grueling, because I was unprepared. Any other time in your life, except maybe on a factory floor, you are never absolutely out of control. Damn the consequences, you can stop and collect your thoughts, or get a cup of coffee, or chat with a friend for a minute. In Reid's world, I exist to serve him. Every need he has, he gives it voice by shouting, or mouthing, or shoving, impossibly, his entire hand into his mouth (a relatively new development). He is surprisingly communicative, though in the end, it is so vexing because you can't know what he wants.
K (and countless other mothers) still insists that there are "hungry" cries versus other particular cries. I think they are projecting. A baby who is crying persistenty four hours after his last feeding is definitely giving you a hungry cry, but that cry is only discernible because the grown-up knows that he hasn't eaten in a while. Every once in a while, Reid seems to cry inconsoleably, breathless weeping like a drunken college student whose boyfriend just dumped her, and there isn't anything I can do about it. I hold him, I rock, I say meaningless syllables over and over in a soothing tone. He eventually stops. I joke, in response to the "hungry cry" talk, that he is mourning the political situation in America, or the Supreme Court's decision to take up the pledge of allegiance case (they're going to find a way to screw things up, trust me) or the disastrous prospects for peace in the Middle East. At least I acknowledge I'm projecting.
If we have a more normal sleep schedule, like we had several uneventful nights last week, Reid is only waking up once, and sleeping from about 10:30 until 4, and then again until around 6:30 or 7. This allows me to get up when K gets up for work, and hold him for a while and see if I can't get another couple minutes of sleep out of the arrangement.
Some nights, when we've been busy or distracted from the paramount task of keeping him awake as long as possible, he has awakened repeatedly, and steadfastly refused to go back to sleep in his bed. He will sleep in my arms, you see, but not on his back in that crib.
One night last week, he woke up at 3:30, and never went back to sleep in the crib. We sat together, me awake and afraid of dropping off to sleep and dropping my son, and him blissfully snoring away, a cute little snore, accompanied by little sidelong grins that I know are just a pleasant feeling from somewhere in his little head, but I'm think, in my sleep deprivation, are my little boy telling me, "Don't get comfy, fatty. You'll be doing this for a long time."
Neither K nor I have resolved what will happen in the middle of night when we're both back to work and Reid is spending his days with Leonor Mendoza.
During the day, Reid and I spend time sitting on a cute little butterfly that is decorated with various noisemaking baby stimulation devices. They variously rattle, jiggle and reflect, and he can stare at them for forty-five minutes.
Or three minutes. It's kind of hit or miss.
Then we walk around the house, which is the main method of entertaining Reid. He enjoys being walked around our home, taken past several doors, windows and mirrors. This game can last for hours. I have commented that I will have unusually developed forearms, like Popeye, from wandering around our house clutching the boy in one arm until it's tired and then into the other.
Another game we play is called "shout." This is the game Reid initiates when he is hungry or otherwise distressed. Most often it lasts until I'm able to warm up some milk for him from the fridge. Often times this game intersects with a robust round of "walk around the house," which serves as a powerful enough distraction that "shout" is cut short until we play "breathlessly slurp down 6 ounces of milk in five minutes."
Reid's intake of milk is prodigious. One of the challenges of converting from breastfeeding to bottlefeeding is the quantity question. Who knows how much milk Reid gets from K? He doesn't come off the breast and say, "four ounces, good enough for me, goodnight all." So during the day, I've been testing different quantities of milk. Basically, I want to feed him until he is satisfied without "going over," which we recognize as Reid, um, choosing not to process the last few ounces he drinks.
By this week, week 2, things are smoother during the day. There are less long spans of crying, and I'm anticipating early signs of hunger (as well as paying attention to the time) and having bottles ready before Reid goes nuclear. Most days we do something around the lunchtime hour that takes us out of the house, and that provides us with a welcome little interlude, and helps bridge the morning's Reid entertainment to the afternoon countdown to K's return.
But tonight, it looks rough. It's almost midnight, and Reid is steadfastly resisting sleep. He seems opposed to it almost on philosophical grounds. All the signs point to drowsiness, he is sleeping soundly in my arms, it's late, his belly is full. But I put him in the crib and he immediately begins struggling against the idea of falling asleep in his own bed. His face crinkles, reddens and shatters into breathless gasps. Then he draws a big breath and takes his first shout.
Good night? Not quite.
