Classic Struggles

During the past 12 hours, I have experienced a few classic parent-of-a-newborn-moments:

Landon decided at about 10pm last night that he no longer needed sleep. He needed to be played with, entertained, fed, bounced, rocked, and held. But sleep? That's for sissies. So JP and I traded off 3-hour shifts of doing all the above. If we stopped doing any of it and tried something crazy like putting him in his papasan chair to sleep, he would scream. Not cry. Shriek. But as long as we were following the rules and entertaining him, he was quite adorable.

He finally "fell asleep" at 10am and I knew, based on his new sleep pattern, I had about 30 minutes to get something done. The options: call tech support because my internet went down at some point last night, call my midwife to schedule my postpartum appointment, take a shower (or at least change clothes), brush my teeth, and make something to eat. I picked tech support- I could do without food or a shower, but I couldn't handle a whole day in the apartment* without internet. So I made the call. Each time the tech support person said "try your internet now ma'am" I prayed it would work because we were getting dangerously close to baby-shrieking time. Sure enough, after 20 min. the internet still wasn't working and the baby was shrieking at 60 seconds intervals. Because I knew that he really was fine, I let him do that for a few minutes and when I finally went in his room, the cat was stationed by his crib and looking at me like "Will you PLEASE do something about this." It's tough having your parenting skills questioned by a somewhat psychotic cat. I scooped Landon up and managed to bounce him in my left arm, while cradling the phone on my right shoulder, and using one hand to type the commands as dictated by tech support. He only screamed twice and each time the poor tech guy was startled. After 10 minutes of that balancing act, my internet was fixed.

Later, Landon decided he could entertain himself for a little while in the play gym. I threw something together for breakfast (even though it's now 1pm)- frozen whole grain waffles and scrambled eggs. The minute my plate was prepared and I picked up my fork, he screamed. Since cold eggs are worse than cold waffles, I scarfed down the eggs and then bounce him while eating my waffles.

So it's been an interesting morning. He's so ridiculously cute when he's playing- despite the lack of sleep, he's in a great mood. He just likes to insert some shrieks every now and then to keep me on my toes. I actually think he had a series of tummy aches last night- he kept squirming and pulling up his feet and then stretching out again. He's been sleeping peacefully now for an entire hour, so hopefully he's feeling better. The funny thing about having a new baby is that once he is finally asleep, I want him to wake up again so I can see his face light up when his hand happens to make contact with one of his toys or watch his brow furrow in concentration while watching my mouth move when I read to him. But when he's screaming, I'm pretty sure he's at his cutest when he's snuggled and sleeping in his papasan chair.

*While it's true that it's the easiest to travel and shop with in his newborn state, because of his prematurity the pediatrician strongly recommended we keep him away from places with a lot of people until he's two months old. Since he's inheriting a generally shitty immune system from both of his parents, and JP and I both had pneumonia before we were 2 months old (and several more times after that), we're inclined to take her advice. And walks are out for the time being because the weather is so hot, humid, and muggy that it's miserable for him to be in his carseat.