Week 2 Day 1: Sleep training is for assholes

Okay. That's not fair. And maybe not even true (only time will tell). All I can say is that the past few days and nights have been really horrible. LAst night Gavin cried for almost 3 and a half hours between 1 and 4 a.m. Needless to say, Stacy and I didn't sleep during that period either. Today everyone was tired. Everyone was crabby. Especially the Gavin part of everybody. Poor dude. He was crying through naps left and right today. By the time STacy got home from work Gavin and I were both fried.

I don't know how anyone gets through the sleep training process without a) getting divorced or b) their children becoming wards of the state.

But maybe the worst is behind us. That's what the testimonials re: the book say ("the book" being Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth). One lady wrote a review on Amazon saying her kid cried for three hours the first night, an hour the second, and 20 minutes the third. After that it was smooth sailing. I hope that's the path we're on. But when you're listening to your kid cry for over three hours it's hard to stay sane. I mean, crying is supposed to get your ass moving as a parent. So to hear Gavin cry ("lustily" as the book says. Gross) for so long and not go to him, make it stop, make it all better is torture. And last night was so hard, but at least Stacy was there. Granted at times I had made her out to be the enemy. Her decisiveness wavering at the same time mine meant not that we were both under a lot of stress but that she was responsible for all of this and therefore she was forcing me to be a bad mom to my son. But then I put my head in her lap and she ran her fingers through my hair and massaged my scalp and I found myself dozing off in the din.

But not today. Today Stacy was at work. Gavin and I had to go it alone. I was sleep deprived. So was he. And he cried without fail every time I put him down. And there was no one to blame but me. And there was no one to comfort me. And I wasn't allowed to comfort him. By his last nap I was so over it. I was so ready to tell Stacy that sleep training was OVER and I was now in charge of our son's emotional well-being since she clearly didn't know what she was doing or care. Mind you, I may have been over reacting a bit. And we're still sleep training. So that should tell you something. Granted, I never told Stacy that I was thinking any of these things. I didn't really see how my lack of sleep derived ranting would help the situation.

I hear Gavin crying all of the time now. Even when he's not. I'm constantly on edge, listening for it. I want him so badly to sleep, not only so that I may sleep, but because I know it is what is good for him and that's the whole point of this godforsaken thing. But I hear his cries even when he's sitting in his exersaucer right across from me smiling his little crooked-lip smile. There's just this phantom crying constantly in my head. Maybe it isn't safe for me to be alone with him.

Do I need to mention that neither of us changed out of our pajamas today? Although I did take a shower. After all, the shower drowns out the cries at least for a little while. Exasperation-driven hygiene is pretty much the level I'm at right now.

Week One Day 5: Cry baby

Tonight's the night. Right this very minute my wife is putting Gavin to bed without a swaddler and without rocking him to sleep. And by rocking him to sleep I mean holding him vertically so he falls asleep with his head on my shoulder or on Stacy's chest (she's taller than me so can hold him lower. I am not explaining this well. Hey, I'm not a physicist). I'm not going to lie, I am feeling really nervous about this. Very anxious. I mean, I know it's for the best or whatever all of the sleep books we've read say. But I can't help but ask myself, "How did it come to this?" Over and over again the books (we read a LOT of books) told us not to establish a routine that will become unworkable once your baby is the size of a large Thanksgiving turkey. The Baby Whisperer's advice, "Start as you mean to go on" might as well be carved inside my brain. And yet every night for months we've rocked him to sleep to the same Carla Bruni CD. I'd say "Carla Bruni song" but it always takes more than one song. And sometimes it takes the entire CD. It's a good workout, but unless we create some kind of pulley system in his room to suspend him, it just can't go on.

My wife and I are not not bodybuilders. We are not huge people. Gavin will probably be taller and bigger than us by elementary school. I've heard my dad saying to Gavin, "One day you'll be big and strong and then you'll show them," them meaning us, me and Stacy. I'm not sure what this means. Is my father predicting that once Gavin is able to he will kick our asses? I can't help but recall the story my dad told me years ago about the mentally ill son who shot his parents in their eyes because they always said, "We're watching you." Did I mention that my dad is a criminologist and that he buys me murder books for Christmas?

In any case, waiting for Gavin to go to bed I'm sweating like a whore in church (an expression I learned from my father). Last night I was thinking this would be easy. After all, part of what stresses me out so much when he cries at night is that I often don't know what's wrong and I have to fix it. In this case I will know what's wrong, but have to let him fix it himself. This is going to be painful for all of us. I probably won't cry, but I guarantee that Stacy will.

By the way, today marks the end of Stay At Home Mama D Week One. Gavin is still alive (see above photo from today). I'm still alive. So far I'm ruling it a success.

Week One Day 4: Midnight cowboy

For the past two nights Gavin has gotten up at midnight to nurse. Usually this wouldn't be a problem for me because nursing is not my department. That's all Stacy. In fact, we call her Booby Cafe, Gavin's preferred dining establishment. All I offer is Pump Lunch (and, today anyway, rice cereal mixed with formula that caused Gavin to make the face I might imagine him making had I fed him directly from Jasper's litter box. After about two spoonfuls we were done with that. It has since hardened to a foul smelling cement in its little bowl on the counter. I'm surprised the cat hasn't eaten it or at least knocked it on the floor for the dog. They tag-team like that). If Booby Cafe is his own personal restaurant, I'm pretty sure he sees Pump Lunch as some kind of roadside stand. Gavin is quite good at taking a bottle, thank God (this was not the case a couple of months ago), but he is definitely a boob man. In fact, Stacy has even surmised that he dreams about her nipples. And standing up, which he loves to do (assisted, of course). But mostly her nipples.

Anyway, for whatever reason, the past two nights Gavin has decided that after his midnight feeding it was "up-up time," as we call his conscious hours. We took turns rocking him to sleep, gently placing him in his crib, only to have him start crying as soon as we made it back to our own bed. This lasted about an eternity (a.k.a. an hour) each night. Perhaps Gavin knows that we are planning on Ferberizing him soon since the rocking to sleep thing has gotten progressively harder now that he's 19+ lbs. Maybe he's testing our wills.

Gavin and I watched some trucks out the front window today. A yellow tree chipper and a small white pick-up truck belonging to the city. A few guys out there in dark blue jumpsuits feeding huge branches into the machine. I tried to explain it to Gavin, how the chipper cut made the tree branches into tiny pieces and that you had to be very careful when you used that machine because the chipper doesn't know what is going into it and will make anything into tiny pieces. "Someday you'll watch Fargo," I told him, "and then you'll understand."

Gavin's Aunt Amanda came over today to watch him for a couple hours while I went to an appointment. I got lost on the way there (I'd never been to their new location before) and was very stressed out. Then on the way home I got even more lost and it took me forever to get home. The weather is really crummy outside. We're under a Winter Weather Advisory here in SE Michigan. I'm hoping that Stacy's school has a snow day tomorrow so she can stay home with us. Maybe we'll take Gavin outside in the snow. And take pictures, of course.

On pictures: there are hundreds of photos of Gavin (over 400 on Facebook alone) in existence. By the time he's a year there likely will be well over 1,000. He's very photogenic. "Photo session" is part of every day's routine activity. I love dressing him up in his little outfits (I buy him clothes almost compulsively) and taking pictures. He has a grandma and other relatives in Florida, an aunt in Boston, an uncle in Arizona. My best friend is in California and Stacy has friends in D.C. So it's a duty and an obsession to take pictures of Gavin so that his peeps can track his growth from afar. Plus, did I mention that he is very photogenic? He is so very handsome. I love his face. Probably too much in that I love it to be clean as well. And if this means picking his nose or constantly dabbing at drool on his lips and chin, I consider it my job. He doesn't like it at all. He'd be fine with hunks of dried snot hanging on his face, but I care about him too much to let him go around like that. Granted, I can already see how this is only going to become more difficult as he gets older. Eventually I won't be able to get him to sit still for countless photos and there will even come a day when I no longer pick out his clothes or take care of his hygiene needs. About age 18 sounds right.

Added mama bonus: persistent heartburn every night. Awesome.