Wide Awake

Someone wrote in my comments lately that most babies "wake up" several weeks after they're born, meaning they cease to be merely writhing lumps of womb-fresh flesh and become alert, active, opinionated chunks of roly-poly person. If, like I did, you had an "easy" newborn (i.e., one who was healthy and who ate and slept well), you might find yourself unprepared to handle this new little being inhabiting the fat rolls of your formerly tranquil infant. And if, like I did, you thought you'd figured out all the tricks to keeping a newborn happy and peaceful, you probably felt yourself scrambling for new material when you realized that those early days were over and this new stage called for more of, well, EVERYTHING: more games, more songs, more toys, and more patience, all to fill the more hours in the day the kid is looking up at you and going "GAH! Gah-OOO!" which doesn't mean "feed me" or "change me" or "put me down for a nap" but "show me," "teach me," "make me laugh."

Yesterday Wombat turned eight weeks old, and when we look at him now, we definitely don't see Newborn anymore but Baby. He's found his hands (verdict: delicious!) and he's ever more aware of and vocal about his wants and needs. Last week I put away his first batch of newborn clothes (*sob*), and the week before we moved him out of newborn diapers up to Size 1 (*sniffle*). We've now tried several times to feed him from a bottle (verdict: what the...?), and although these attempts are the first steps toward my liberation (he's been 100% breastfed from the tap this whole time), I was still holding back tears while watching Simon introduce the plastic nipple into my son's previously narrow, mamacentric universe. (I WANT him to take the bottle, I really do (and he HAS to before I go back to work), but I'll nevertheless admit to feeling a thrill when he rejected the bottle because all wanted was ME.)(Everyone says parenthood is selfless, and while I'll agree with that on one hand, on the other it's one hell of an ego trip when Baby thinks you're the only one who can make things right.)

In the last eight weeks we have learned (or are still learning):

--that what worked last week, or yesterday, or ten minutes ago, won't necessarily work now

--that sometimes NOTHING works and you just have to ride out the tempest

--that putting the baby to bed and taking the monitor out to the hot tub--something we always imagined in our best-case-scenario daydreams--is entirely possible; the fact that it takes forty-five minutes to get the kid to sleep before you can get into the hot tub only makes that eventual reward all the sweeter

--that some moms don't need to "sleep when the baby sleeps" (I've only taken three naps since he was born)

--that when the baby is sleeping, you shouldn't waste that precious time watching the baby sleep, no matter how anerable he's being; instead you should work when the baby sleeps because that's probably the only chance you'll have to get anything done

--that you might need to redefine "work": sometimes it means washing dishes or folding laundry, and sometimes it means taking a shower

--that sometimes it's okay to watch the baby sleep; that's when they do all their growing, you know, and if you don't pay attention you're bound to miss it; I already know what it's like to peek in on my napping child and discover a kid with a fake moustache, and I'm definitely not ready to walk into his room and find him six feet tall and with a real moustache

--that the difference between sleeping four or five hours in a row or six and seven hours in a row is MONUMENTAL

That last one is the newest development and the perfect example of what it's like to have a post-newborn infant in the house: with every beneficial development, we lose a beloved standby characteristic of our familiar newborn. A few nights ago, for instance, he didn't go to bed quick and easy like usual but screamed and cried and whined and lamented to the gods, all because he was absolutely too tired to even consider going to bed and how dare we presume that we knew what was best for him. After what felt like hours of trying to get him to sleep (which included multiple feeds, a PowerPoint presentation on the benefits of bedtime, and a fifteen-minute session on the playmat because, boom, he was WIDE AWAKE), he finally went down at 11:30 and slept for SIX BLESSED, WHIPPED-CREAM TOPPED HOURS. Apparently everything's a trade-off now: Easy bedtimes for longer nights. His smiles for my tears.

If I had to sum up my experience of these first eight weeks, I'd say this: The baby stuff is easy--it's trying to do everything else at the same time that's hard. Now that he's eight weeks and one day old and "awake," though, I' m pretty sure the baby stuff is about to get hard too. At least I'll be well-rested for it.

wrote Leah at 6:37 AM | Comments (10)