Picture My World

Being there when your baby daughter wakes up. She opens her eyes, sees your face… and smiles.

Well, first trip since the baby was born.

This is a first I could do without. It was harder than I thought leaving her, even for this short time. I’m going to miss days of development and, at this age, that’s a significant chunk of her short life. Is she going to miss me? Or, remember who I am when I return? I’m not sure babies even recognize individuals at 2 months of age.

Anyway, I’m toast after a red-eye flight and little sleep in the last 48 hours. Time to sleep and leave the analysis of my feelings or the coincidence that today is Father’s day for later. (I know you’re disappointed.)

Shula grabbed her first toy today! She looked pretty impressed with herself, but her biggest effort seemed to be in figuring out how to let go.

Wow. Shula fell asleep at 9 pm tonight after a fairly grumpy evening. Her grumpiness was mildly entertaining, though, as it was punctuated by moments (sometimes very brief moments) of giddiness. Babies are very strange.

So, I got 45 minutes of work done along with a few household chores after I got home from work and before baby duty. Pretty good for a night’s work.

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Future fathers – pay attention as this story is a glimpse at what you have to look forward to. My wife told me my birthday present this year. She’s going to invite my friends over for brunch and then I can go to see a movie. In a theater. Without the baby. I think it’s the best birthday present I’ve received in a very long time.

I will, most likely, choose a disappointing flick with few redeeming features except for some very expensive special effects. I will, however, enjoy it!

As usual, I am downstairs on the couch with our little one. We’re working on getting our bedroom’s skylight covered but, until that happens, the dawn light starts to wake Shula up, so we move her downstairs. She’s in one of her fairly typical wake up cycles that involves a lot of thrashing, straining, and occasional screaming. You’d almost think it was a nightmare except that the periodic farts confirm it’s just gas.

She just woke up fully and gave me a sweet smile. That makes up for the punches in the face when she started waking.

Check out Ben MacNeill’s blog The Trixie Update. (I found this link on frum dad). The most impressive part is the “Trixie Tracker” telemetry at the top of the page. I love it. Ben’s commercializing it as we speak, too.

My only question is: Where does he get the time?!

Once again, I am awake when I’d rather be asleep. Shula has shifted her schedule and is wide awake at 11 pm. She used to be asleep by 10:30, but something has changed. The trip to Manning probably did it.

So, I took her for a 45 minute walk and she’s still asleep 20 minutes after getting back, but it’s a shallow sleep. I think she could wake any minute.

We’re not sure how to get her back to her old routine. You’d think that maybe cutting her naps back during the day would make her fall asleep earlier in the evening. But that would be too easy. One of our baby sleep books says they sleep better if they have good naps. The bottom line is that it is a mystery and you just have to deal with it — which has to be easier than trying to schedule a 2 month old.

Otherwise she’s been an incredibly happy baby the last few days. Smiles almost all the time which are a continuous joy to behold.

On the way home from Manning Park.

We took a trip up to Manning Park for the weekend. It was a fairly dreary couple of days, weather wise. We stayed at The Last Resort with a small crowd from our synagogue. There were a lot of young children which kept the noise and energy levels up, but the 3 of us survived even though Shula came close to not sleeping the second night. We’re blaming that on over stimulation from her many admirers.

Tonight, it seems we’re back to the normal routine (as dictated by the two month old) which means everyone is asleep except for me.

I had a short discussion with the rabbi about faith and the many biblical inconsistencies that seem apparent when you consider an omnipotent and omniscient God. There were two parts to the discussion: 1) Faith in a god and 2) the leap from that to belief that the Torah is true and God as Judaism understand Him exists. I hope to write about that in the future but I’m out of energy now.

On that note, I shall retire to bed.

There are two of us in front of the keyboard. Baby and myself. Guess who’s getting to sleep?

I have no idea what most infants are like, but this one sleeps more soundly if she’s being held. The first stretch at night is usually good even if you put her down, but after the first feed things get dicey. Put her down and she may wake up 30 minutes later (instead of 2 or 3 hours later if held). During the day, it’s even worse as she’s guaranteed to start stirring 15 minutes after she leaves your arms.

She’s just about 8 weeks old, though, so we aren’t panicking yet. We’re happy that she can occasionally fall asleep without sucking on anything at this point.

My duty is to ensure she keeps sleeping for at least 2 hours at the start of the night so my wife can get some quality sleep in before the night feeds begin. So far, so good. Perhaps I’ll add post something else if a topic tickles my fancy.

If you put your baby down to sleep make sure you pick a good spot. You won’t want to move her once she’s down for fear of waking her and if she’s in a poor place, like the couch, you’ll regret it.

At least I’m regretting it right now as I stay up to supervise her.

It seems Shula has no issue taking a bottle and we had our first real feed tonight. I’m afraid to tell my wife for fear I’ll be the one who has to get up for the midnight feedings…

I should at least mention something regarding fatherhood so this blog* lives up to its sub-title.

Our child, Shula, is now 6.5 weeks old which means we are officially through the toughest period for new parents. Perhaps I will now have time to pass on some lessons. The first mini-lesson that new fathers must learn that their time is no longer their own. You are allowed to ignore this lesson and carry on as if your wife decided to go into the baby-care business as a sole proprietor, but it’s not recommended. It’s especially important that you dedicate yourself to your family during the first few weeks.

One father told me I should read all the books and see all the movies I wanted to before the birth. That’s true to some extent but I have found time to read and I can watch movies a few minutes at a time. Although, be sure to get a 7-day rental and don’t get anything with heavy accents.

* Shouldn’t “blog” be in blogger’s online spell checker?