It’s 1:30 in the morning…do you know where your wife is? Well, this week, I get to find out as I’m starting week one of a two (separate) week stint of paternity leave. I’m going to memorialize it here with writings and photos.
Today my wife goes back to work after being off for the last 12 weeks. She has been a trooper dealing with our little one while I’ve been the one sleeping at night and going to work. She had the ever so sensitive ear (or I just deep sleep) and got to Freddie before I would even wake up. She never complained and was always looking out for my well being. Now it is my turn to get up and grab him before he wakes her up.
My duties actually began last night as I was put in charge of getting him to bed. Lately Freddie has not been very cooperative in the “going to bed” category. He wants to stay up and see Letterman or Leno’s monologue before hitting the sack. Last night was no exception. I fed him, tried to put him down, but the uncontrollable crying began shortly thereafter. He’s just tired, I know this, but he can’t seem to settle himself down yet. And it comes right out of the blue too. He’s quiet, you think you have it under control, then WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Of course it doesn’t help when you are holding him at this time and he starts to squirm because without fail he will head bunt me in the chin, which now instead of being tired crying it becomes “Ouch!! My head hurts now!!! WAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” I finally got him to sleep by 11:30 and in the crib.
1:30 a.m. rolls around and I hear him fussing. So I get up as my wife has told me that sometimes a pacifier works to settle him back down. Nope, not tonight. This time he is hungry. So I have to get my wife up (and this is the arrangement, I do the last feeding before bed, she feeds at the 1:30-2:30 feeding, I feed at 4:30-5:30 and the rest of the day until she gets home). I head back to bed to try to get a few more winks before the next round.
4:30 a.m. Freddie wakes up. I hear him breathing funny (daddy gave him a cold this weekend, so boogers are all the rage right now in his world) so I get up. Sure enough his eyes are open. I pull him over to the changing table to try to clear his nose out and he just doesn’t like that so early in the morning. So I stop, but he is also hungry. Which makes sense timing wise. So I take him out to get a bottle ready and again “WHAM!!” he plants his forehead into my chin. WWWAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! (Note to self: need to put more things on the walls so it doesn’t echo so much in the house.) I get him settled down and get a bottle made up. I feed him and get him back down. Whew…a few more hours before the day begins.
It is at this time that I start to write this entry. My wife comes in to iron her clothes and asks “why aren’t you in bed sleeping?” “I’m OK” I respond. “I’m normally up at this time.” “OK, you’ll learn though. Sleep is a commodity when you are watching him.”
Hmmmm…..she may have a point here. But I guess I’ll learn it the hard way.
It’s now 6:00 a.m. and I’m going to try to eat some breakfast and do some chores before he gets up at 7:30ish. I understand he takes another nap around 12:00 noon so updates will be coming throughout the day. Maybe…if I’m not sleeping by then.
UPDATE: 11:00 a.m. - Sleeping babies are good.
We’ve successfully navigated the morning with some play time on the play mat, a morning feeding, getting dressed, and daddy successfully starting some laundry. Not in that order of course. He’s been down for about an hour now and I’m still trying to figure out how we got two hours off his schedule. Oh well. Dads always do it differently than moms right? In my downtime I have also started to process some of the photos I took over Thanksgiving weekend and started to upload them to my Flickr account. I have a few more to go, as well as a few from today I’ll add (and link to in this post). Something tells me I better get some food for myself before he gets up.
UPDATE: 7:00 p.m. - Mommy’s home now and we successfully made it through the afternoon. We got some more play time in. We watched a little Baby Einstein to get his color senses going. We got another nap in after his lunch feeding and we listened to some music. Overall it was a successful day. I even got dinner fixed without a hitch. Now it is time for the evening round where we can see if we can get him to bed at a reasonable hour to start it all over again.
UPDATE: 10:50 p.m. - Just when you thought the day was over, it really never ends. Cyndi got to spend some time with Freddie when she got home today, but was so tired she went to bed at 8:30. So I did the last feeding of the night, and put him down to bed around 10:30. I’m sure he will be up again between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m.. Cyndi will do that feeding and I’l take any other interruptions over the night and the 4:30-5:30 feeding. Coffee is already set in the pot for the early cup. Now I just need to unwind so I can go to bed. Sleep?? Who needs sleep?? Remember, America runs on Dunkin’.