Here's where my complacency about having the second baby starts to bite me in the behind.
I guess I'd vaguely remembered that Josh did most of his sleeping during the day when he was a newborn, and kept us up most of the night - and that he didn't start sorting that out until we put him in the nursery in his own crib, when he was something like six weeks old. And I suppose I vaguely realized that we'd be somewhat short on sleep for the first few weeks or months after Baby Ben came along, and thus prepared myself by trying to get as much done as possible around the house before he came along, figuring I'd be too busy and/or tired once we had a little bundle of hunger and gas plopped down in the middle of our lives again. Otherwise, I was shockingly unconcerned about the whole thing.
The reality, not surprisingly, is a little harder to deal with.
It's truly amazing - this little bugger will sleep quietly and cutely all day long, unfazed by a big brother running yelling around the house, dishes crashing, phones ringing, car doors slamming, dog barking, tactical nukes going off on the other side of the valley... (Just seeing if you're more awake than I am, there...) All day long, he's a not-very-animate lump. He'll wake up to quaff down some booby every so often, and he'll definitely wake up (and complain) when you change his diaper or get him dressed (he has a lot in common with his big brother on that account), but otherwise he's a perfect little somniac from dawn to dusk. He'll even fool us into thinking we should go to bed, as he quietly drones on in blissful dreaminess around 8 or 9 pm, when we're getting drowsy ourselves.
The moment we turn the lights off and try to go to sleep, however - and I kid you not, it's THAT MOMENT precisely - he wakes up and becomes Mr. Peripatetic for the remainder of the night. He wants booby. Then he gets gassy and growls and whines and squirms for an hour trying to get it out (and even if you do a really good burp job on him, there's always more methane in there bubbling to get out). Then he's Mr. Look-Around, wide-eyed and perky, checking out the world - which he'd have a great deal more luck with if he'd do it when it isn't pitch dark because we're trying to sleep, thankyouverymuch! Then it's back to the booby again, and the whole cycle starts all over again. Forget about sleeping in the bassinet, too - just like his big brother, he wants nothing to do with it, not when he could be nestled all warm and cozy next to mommy's booby. (Don't tell Dr. Steve that we're co-sleeping, he'd have a water buffalo.)
I've been wandering around bleary-eyed and largely useless for the past two and a half weeks, grumping at people more or less at random and getting zippo accomplished, up to and including keeping the blog up to date. I take the baby out of the room at about 6am every morning to give Felicia a break and let her catnap for an hour or two, after which she generally staggers out looking totally blinkered and nonfunctional, only to be greeted by an all-too-awake Joshua who's eager to have some Momma Time - not to mention a hungry and crying Baby Ben, who wants his booby. Surprisingly, Felicia seems to do okay by the time the afternoon rolls around - I'm not sure where that second wind of hers comes from, but I want one. Me, I just go progressively downhill as the day goes along, until by mid-afternoon I'm like an extra from "Night of the Living Dead." Every third night or so, I escape to the couch, more often than not at Felicia's urging, just so I can recharge my sleep batteries enough to get by (barely) for another couple days.
Other than the sleeping thing, though, things are pretty well on an even keel around here. Ben is growing by leaps and bounds - as of last Friday, he was already up to 8 pounds 9 ounces, which means Felicia's breastmilk must be the basis for one of those bodybuilders' weight-gain formulas, you know, the ones that promise you'll go from Weeny-Boy to Mr. Universe in six hours by drinking their super-shakes. (Maybe I should try some...) Josh shows every sign of being a great big brother, giving Ben kisses all the time, sharing his toys (usually by putting them on Ben's head), and generally watching out for the little one. Grandma Kay can typically be found glued to the baby, whose favorite daytime sleeping spot is cuddled up in the crook of his grandma's elbow, or over her right shoulder. Gimli, meanwhile, just lies around in the same spot in the playroom, with this long-suffering look on his face, waiting for Grandpa to come back from his business trip.
We'll manage. But man, my kingdom for a good, solid, Boo-style three-hour nap...
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