The books say that it's great to have your newborn room-in with you. For the first few months, instead of putting him in his own (snazzily painted and decorated and only kinda smells like dirty diapers) room, let the kiddo bunk in the master bedroom. It's great for connection, familial bonding, eternal love and avoiding that messy "teenage" phase. (Okay, those last two might just be wishful thinking on my part.)

But, the experts warn, rooming-in is not for everyone. Certain parents are not suited to sleep two feet from their baby. What type of parent? The type who "feels the need to pick up the baby when it cries." Oh, okay. Those parents.

IS THERE ANY OTHER KIND OF PARENT? Seriously? There are parents who don't feel the need? I mean, I understand that certain schools of thought (read: old ones) recommend letting the crying go on indefinitely without acting on it, but was there ever a parent who didn't want to pick up the child? A parent who didn't have the inclination? Really?

Anyway, horror aside, I am one of "those" parents, and thus not the ideal roommate for Cael.

The problem? Infants make noises when they're falling asleep. Not just yawns and sighs, but full on whines, whimpers, gurgles, grunts and squeals. He is a one man band of sound. Apparently, this is normal. Good, even. He's working himself to sleep.

And working me into an early grave.

I don't wake up when Clio whines and Ryan has to get out of bed and take her outside. I don't wake up when Ryan spends thirty minutes vomiting in the adjacent bathroom. But if Cael so much as squeaks, I'm jolted awake. And I'm not supposed to do anything about it. I'm supposed to let him fuss for a few minutes and see if he falls back asleep.

That's like sitting me in front of a bowl of chocolate ice cream and telling me to just watch it melt for its own good. I have a limited amount of willpower and I really don't want allot any to seeing Cael squirm and ignoring it. This is using up all the willpower I was going to use to get back into my pre-pregnancy jeans.

With Cael as my roommate, I spend my nights clinging to the edge of my bed. I lie there listening to him whimper and moan while watching the clock and waiting impatiently for five minutes to pass so I can go comfort him. Granted, it doesn't usually get to that point because he does actually fall back asleep, but that isn't helping me. I can't fall back asleep (no matter how much I whimper and moan). I spend my nights feeding him and watching him go in and out of sleep. I don't spend my nights sleeping.

But, as necessity is the mother of invention and motherhood necessitates inventing things, I have developed a cure! I've found that when I sleep with a pillow over my head it filters out all Cael's noises except the all-out cry. The only thing I hear is the only thing I can act on! And, as a bonus, it also muffles the white-noise animals he's so insistent on sleeping with.

I'm thinking of marketing it. Sure, it's just a pillow, but if they can do it, so can I. The only question is, do I shape it like an ear or a sheep?

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Ryan's paternity leave has ended and he's back to work. Cael and I are now officially on our own during the day. We've been awake for seven hours now.

Things I have accomplished:

Shower
A load of laundry

Things Cael has accomplished:

2 meals
2 naps
Soiling half a dozen diapers
Soiling 2 onesies
Soiling my shirt
Soiling my sheets
Crying
Staring into space
Dancing
"Running from bad guys"

He let me set him down in the swing long enough to shower (but not dry my hair or put on makeup) and let me set him on my bed long enough to urp all over my sheets. Other than that, he has decided my arms are cozy and he doesn't want to leave them. Apparently, days without Dad are going to be a lot like nights - full of singing, rocking and holding.

How do daycares do it? This kid is high maintenance. (No, he doesn't get that from me! Shush!)

Still on my list of things I'd like to accomplish today:

Eat breakfast and/or lunch
More laundry
Go to Target
Start Cael's scrapbook

Too ambitious?

Keep in mind that I've typed this entire post one-handed while giving him his third meal. I'm a multitasker!

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You know that joke about breakfast? A day's work for the chicken and a lifetime commitment for the pig? It's supposed to make you feel bad for the pig - but I'm really starting to empathize with the chicken.

Or, more appropriately, the dairy cow.

I am a milk machine. Cael, at the ripe old age of 12 days, decided to go through a growth spurt. Instead of the already tedious hour long feedings every three to four hours, he now demands to be fed every two. For those of you who struggle with math, that's an hour on, an hour off for 24 hours a day. I feel like the espresso machine at the Starbucks at Pike's Place (I bet it smells like sour milk too).

You'd think that with all this practice at least we'd be getting more efficient - that we'd be a well oiled machine by now. When really? We are backtracking. Rapidly. Somehow he's lost all nipple-sense that he'd gained in the first few days. He used to latch on in a minute or two. Now he couldn't locate the dang thing in under 15 minutes with both hands, a flashlight and a map. It's like he's bobbing for apples with a blindfold on and when he finds one he spits it out before sinking his gums in.

Also contributing to the unnecessarily long feeding session is his uncanny ability to fall asleep right when the getting is good. He finally makes contact and it must release some chemical trigger in his brain that sends him straight off to the land of nod. He will not be woken by bouncing, singing, ice bath, or fog horn. The only way to wake him up is to put him in his bed. Then he starts wailing. I am painfully aware of the irony, yes.

He's going to have to get a little more finesse with the boobies before I let him date. We wouldn't want him to embarrass himself by blindly groping or falling asleep.

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It's official. I've reached the point in sleep deprivation where I've actually started hallucinating.

For some reason, my body knows that I need to wake up throughout the night to feed him - so, like clockwork, I startle awake every three hours even if Cael is snoozing peacefully. For the past two nights, each time I have woken up I've been convinced that I fell asleep mid-feeding. I see the little baby in my arms smothered by the comforter and struggling to breathe. I actually see it. Every. Single. Time. It's scary as hell and takes me a good 30 seconds to figure out that it's not actually reality. This is worse than the nightmare that I keep having where everyone tells me I'm a bad mother and takes him away from me.

According to the books, Cael could be continuing with nighttime feedings for a few months yet. This means that I am going to have to be awake for an hour every three hours for months. DUDE. I am not built this way. I am the girl that can sleep until three in the afternoon if there is no alarm set to wake me. I need twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep to function coherently. I am going to be some sort of undead horror film creature by the end of next week, yos. Fear me!

I think that if I'm going to have to suffer through hallucinations they should at least be good ones. Like maybe I wake up and think I'm on a tropical beach drinking a margarita. Or I'm in a cabin at the mountains in front of a fire with a cup of hot chocolate. Or, hell, I don't know - I'm in the future, three months from now and I can actually go back to sleep. Any one will do.

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*yawns*

I do not remember what sleep is. I'm pretty sure I used to enjoy it. It's all a blur now.

Ryan and Cael, however, find time to indulge.



I really wish the little one wouldn't sleep all day and scream all night. Somehow I think that I should be doing something besides letting him snooze during daylight, the little vampire. I can't bring myself to wake him now, however, since a) they're really cute and b) Ryan is still mid finals and deserves all the breaks he can get. Plus he lets me wake him up in the middle of the night to change diapers so I don't have to get out of bed (Hey! Don't give me that look! I'm recovering!). It only takes two or three repetitions of his name, a few scratches on the back of the head and a couple of "just give me one minute"s to actually rouse him. That, my friends, is a good man.

My first real "only a mother would do that" moment has now happened. In retrospect, I can't believe I did it. Cael was on the changing table as the Cartys arrived. They stepped into the nursery just as the diaper was coming off and BAM! Cael took that opportunity to let loose. Poo squirted out of his bottom and I threw my hand in the line of fire to block Martin and Kathy from the spray. I used myself as a projectile poo-shield without a moment's hesitation. I can still feel the ghost of the warmth and see the utter shock on their faces. And I still have to clean the carpet. =)

These are the kind of stories I'm going to have now. Aren't you all terribly afraid?

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In my continued effort to tell you things they don't tell you about pregnancy:

When to go to the hospital:

MYTH: When your contractions are five minutes apart, last for one minute each, and continue for an hour.

FACT: When you cannot walk or speak through your contractions.

Um, yeah. I had contractions for over 24 hours. They started about 7 minutes apart and were getting progressively more painful (but not incredibly painful). By yesterday at 1pm they were 3 minutes apart. So I end up calling my doctor (mostly because all the men at work were
flipping out and threatening to throw me over their shoulders and take me themselves) and she says go to the hospital. I go to the hospital, get all strapped up and monitored and my contractions are 2 minutes apart.

They keep me there for 4 hours with their frowny "hmm" faces on and then say, "You can walk and talk through your contractions. You probably have a day or so left."

DUDE. TELL ME THIS BEFORE I COME TO THE HOSPITAL. Wth? If that's a rule? It should be listed in the rules! What is this 5 minutes apart crap? Why doest thou lie to me and make me feel like a reject?

Also, I'd like to point out that on the discharge papers they gave me that tell you when to return it says, "When your contractions are five minutes apart, last for one minute and continue for an hour." Um, yes... been there done that and got sent home. Thanks for playing.

Anyway, poor Ryan. I've hit the cranky/weepy portion of our program and I just want this thing OUT. Gah.

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