Mommy Works While Daddy Tends Baby

3 mos., 5 days old
4:07 a.m.Up after changing Baby A at 3:30 a.m. A good night for her, having last received a new diaper around 10:30 p.m. Five hours ties her personal record for sleep between changes. Came up with a new song that I'll try to remember: a slow, wave-like melody to lift her from the soggy dreams that leave her thrashing. ("Oh Baby A, it's time to wake up and change your diaper, then come back to bed and get some loving, from mother and father, who love you so, who love you so.") Unambitious lyrics, but she seemed to like the tune. For a while I was trying "Beautiful Dreamer, wake unto me" (or is it "waken to me"?), but I don't know many more of the words, and too often it left her squawling throughout the change, uncertain of her surroundings. I don't take well to being the cause of her distress. This tune seemed to wake her gently and left her smiling and kicking calmly on the diaper pad before being returned to M's breast -- the best of possible nighttime changing outcomes.

Yeah, she sleeps in our bed. It's a point of some debate in (and out of) our household. Much more about that at some point. I get up to change diapers, a modest trade for M doing all the feedings.

5:03 a.m.
Diaper Change #2. Cluster peeing often happens after long stretches without urination. The little song received a blustery welcome this time, but she soon settled down and smiled at me during the second or third Repeat Chorus (i.e., the entire song).

Yesterday, the first test of our eight-month, Mommy Works While Daddy Tends Baby experiment, was rough. We'd just returned from a week of family visiting on the West Coast, and after a hard day's flight no one had slept well, least of all Baby A. Well, no: least of all M, who wakes (at least a little) at the slightest infant stirring. So M, who'd wanted an early start, instead got a couple of catch-up hours between 7-9 a.m., and then awoke discombobulated and overwhelmed by considerable work duties (which, with a couple of exceptions, had been ignored for a week, in an unprecedented relaxation of her typical vacation practice). Then she started answering emails in bed, and between feedings and phone calls and whatnot, she didn't even get up to pee until about 11 and was still in her robe at 1:30 p.m. The "whatnot" included at least a couple of snippy exchanges with me, including over control of the menu for a work-related dinner we're hosting Friday night. I offered to ease her burden by assuming all responsibility for the dinner -- planning, shopping, cooking, the works. She responded by worrying that I'd experiment and avoid well-trodden recipe ground, which I often do (that is, experiment) and which she dislikes when guests loom and her priority is to minimize potential culinary disaster. I responded by calling her in so many words a control freak, which in retrospect was not only a moment of Pot Calling Kettle Black but also a poor Conflict Avoidance Strategy. When she finally left the house at 2:15, having departed abruptly after calling down to me in the basement (I responded with a snotty "Give me one minute, I'm putting things in the dryer" -- then, "Hey, she's pulling out of the driveway at a speed that indicates ill-repressed rage"), I was glad she was gone.

Post-departure, things don't improve. I buckle Baby A into her car seat, attach it to the stroller and head out on our usual 30-minute route around the neighborhood, a sure-fire way to induce sleep. But for the first time in my stroller experience she cries for 10 solid minutes, despite (because of?) my repeated efforts to return her pacifier to her mouth. I've forgotten my gloves, and my hands are stiff. She has on a onesie and a beanie and a hooded snowsuit and her warmest blanket, but the wind is up and the temperature is about freezing, and maybe she's just cold. I give up and turn toward home when she falls asleep; I veer back toward our usual route along Shore Drive, but the wind is whipping up whitecaps on the Sound and she stirs under her blanket, so I scurry leeward and, shortly, home.

I keep her in the car seat, and she sleeps for more than an hour while I catch up on a week's worth of email and scan the Times online. She awakes bawling, and after a change of diapers fails to stop the cries, I defrost a 2-ounce baggie of pumped mother's milk by running it under hot water for a couple of long minutes, bouncing her in my left arm and singing nonsense to keep her fussing to a minimum. With an occasional assist from my pinioned left hand, I uncap her bottle, untie the twist tie, unfold the baggie, pour the defrosted milk into the bottle, rescrew the bottle top, grab the boppie pillow from its perch atop the playpen, pull out a chair, scooch up to the kitchen table, wrench the boppie around my waist, lay her down, tip the bottle into her mouth, and pour a good half-ounce of milk onto her chest. That "rescrew the bottle top" step needs work. Now she's really crying, and she wants no part of the bottle. Well, she wants some part of it. But she's offended, outraged even, whether from the presence of the plastic nipple or the absence of M or the presence of a milk-sodden onesie or the presence of an increasingly addled and unreassuring father.

Baby A has developed a habit of continuing to complain after we have taken seconds or minutes too long to meet her needs. A nurse at our pediatrician's office witnessed 6-week-old Baby A griping at M's breast, alternating long sucks with furious cries. The nurse seemed stunned. "How old is she? Is that all? And she's talking back to you like that? Has she always done that? Ooo-ooo." Her voice rose on the second "ooo," like someone calling "soo-ey!" She shook her head, staring as Baby A continued to suckle and squawk. "That girl, she's, she's a..." The nurse rifled her internal thesaurus, searching for something that wouldn't sound as pejorative as "she-devil" or "hellcat" or "bitch." Finally she said, "She's going to be a leader!"

Now our leader is whipped up, and while she takes an occasional suck at the nipple, she's putting more energy into her cries. Every time she catches my eye she's stirred into a new frenzy of rage. For a while I try to avoid her gaze, keeping my eye pinned to the clock whose second-hand drags unaccountably. This confuses her into silence, but only for about 45 seconds. Then I try to shield her eyes from looking at anything at all. (I'm recalling M's description of Baby A's "private nursing" when she brings her tiny hand up to M's nipple, as if to shield her suckling from the world's gaze.) This only refuels her outrage. Finally, less than one ounce downed, I decide to head upstairs to change the wet onesie and endure more long minutes of screeching while I put on a new outfit and a vest to warm her up. By this time her cries have taken on the shuddering aspect that says her grief is unassauageable. We return downstairs and again wrestle with the bottle -- she's not having it. Finally, I resort to the "5 S" routine known to followers of pediatrician Harvey Karp as a way to calm the most perturbed baby. In this crisis I don't take the time to swaddle (S No. 1), but I put her on her side (2), give her a pacifier to suckle (3), jiggle my legs and "shake" (4), and intone loudly, directly into her ear, over and over, "Shhhhh" (5). The goal is to recreate conditions of the womb, where the ambient noise is as loud as a vacuum cleaner. Baby A resists mightily. Trying to keep her unswaddled hands at bay and her pacifier in place requires a minimum of three parental hands, or creative use of one's thighs and forearms. After 10 minutes of rassling, Baby A gives up and falls into fitful sleep, her brow creased into the look we call "Consternation Girl."

M returns from work early, apparently in a better mood, and we go out to dinner with my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, whose visit to NYC ends tomorrow and who've spent the day in ignorant bliss watching Kevin Kline play Cyrano de Bergerac. We sit down at our nice neighborhood Italian place, and as we listen to the waiter run through the specials I can feel M's anger rise. In the wake of Baby A's birth she's become allergic to a raft of foods -- wheat, nightshades like tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant, any cheese with a rind, red wine, pistachios, more. I'm pretty sure she can eat the fish special without breaking into a throat-closing rash, but she apparently disagrees. These days, almost every time she eats she gets cranky -- quite a change for a woman who's always loved food. What with her job in an unusual pressure-filled state, her days are often filled with angst and unhappiness. Then Baby A poops for the first time all day, and it stains both her onesie and vest. No one's remembered to bring the diaper bag. So I grab a piece of sourdough, wipe up some olive oil, grab the car seat with Baby A in place, uncheck my coat, pay the parking attendant, and drive home, venting the entire time to my child about her mother ("When is she finally going to resign herself to her limited food options? I know it sucks, but, shit, I can't take the sighing and the silent moping every fricking time we sit down to a meal. I'm telling you, Baby A, my patience has about run out.") When I pull up to the house four minutes later, Baby A's fast asleep. For some reason, this brightens my mood. I change her and return to the restaurant, and we have a lovely meal. M enjoys the fish without reaction. Baby A sleeps peacefully right through to her pre-bedtime feeding. Later, in bed, over her sleeping body, I tell M about our baby's response to my car rant, and we laugh.

6:14 a.m.
Diaper Change #3. Cluster peeing, indeed. Nothing but coos to the new song. A keeper.