Seabass’ First Word

24 Jul

A slip! A very palpable slip!

Like every Saturday morning, Jake sat eating his breakfast while I checked e-mail at the laptop.  The silence was broken by his chuckle.

“Oh man, I just remembered the dream I had last night.”

“Do tell, darling.”

“Okay.  We were going to sleep, and for some reason we had Seabass with us in the bed.  As we lay there, drifting off, he suddenly decided to utter his first word.”

“…which was…?”

“SEXY.”

“No way.”

“Yes.  Sexy.  And as soon as he said it, I thought, ‘We have to put this in the blog!  It’s his first word!'”

So here it is, in the blog.  Our son’s first (virtual) word is sexy. Freudians, have at it.

Missing: My Butt

22 Jul

Something's missing here.

While we’re admitting things we’re not proud of, I’ll just go ahead and share that I think about my body a lot these days.  Probably way too much.

When I read the word “PREGNANT” on the white stick last August, of course the first thing I considered was the tiny little Seabass swimming contentedly in my lower abdomen.  But just behind that thought was a more sinister one, lurking deep in the shadows: You’re going to get fat. And then, to its logical conclusion: The fat might never go away.

Thankfully, I only gained about 30 pounds during my pregnancy – truly a miracle considering how I put away tri-tip sandwiches and muffins for nine months.  Also very thankfully, I have lost all but five of those pounds due to breastfeeding and the God-given grace of good genes.  But that’s not to say I look the same.  Uh, no.  Not even close.

You see, I appear to have lost my butt.

It first became clear that my butt had gone missing about two months into the pregnancy.  “Does my bee-hind look different to you?” I asked Jake, turning to give him the best view.  Having learned his lesson years ago, he replied, “No, you look beautiful as always.”  Smart man.  And a liar.

I probably wouldn’t have asked him or even noticed it myself if my undergarments hadn’t started acting differently. To explain…hmmm…how can I put this delicately?  It suddenly felt like I was pulling my underwear out of my rear 24 hours a day.  There was no longer anything of substance to hold it back.  The elastic looked for something – anything – to cling to, but there was no hanging on.  It just slid across that flat surface and happily wedged itself right in the middle.

Afraid that my Mom Butt (a real condition) would lead to the inevitable wearing of Mom Jeans (a real product), I consulted with friends who’d already had babies to get the inside scoop.  “Don’t worry,” they reassured me.  “Your butt’s just hibernating.  There’ll be junk back in your trunk the moment Seabass is born.  You’ll see.”

But I’m not seeing anything yet.  My trunk remains junk-less, and I’m still playing tug-o-war with my undies on a bi-hourly basis. To make matters worse, my stomach looks like a Shar Pei puppy and my shoulders are permanently slumped from holding the baby.  I’m like the friggin Phantom of the Opera.

Let’s just get this out of the way: I know I should be patient with myself.  I know, I know. And I know that Hollywood has given me an unrealistic expectation for my postpartum body.  I know, I know.

Perhaps more helpful to me right now is knowing that my body has done something for which it was made.  I grew a beautiful, healthy baby and birthed him, all by myself.  Shouldn’t my body look different after a feat of such enormity?  If it took nine months for this body to grow with Seabass, shouldn’t I expect that it will take another nine months to shrink back to size?

Yes, I should.

But I think some of this crazy-making comes from my refusal to accept that I look like a mom.  I may not wear Mom Jeans (yet) but I carry a diaper bag that requires its own zip code.  I can’t wear most of my cute pre-preg clothes because they don’t present easy access to the boob for nursing.  I mean, I drive a little SUV for crying out loud.  Anyone who looks at me can easily deduce which phase of life I’m in, long before the baby comes into view.  And maybe that scares me a little.  The no-question-ness of it all.

So for the time being, I’m putting up little signs around the neighborhood that read: “Have you seen this butt?  Last seen August, 2009.”  I’m checking between the cushions on the sofa.  I’m peeking in the dryer and under the bed.  My tush has to be somewhere around here, and I’m not giving up until I find it.

Shameless Bribery

21 Jul

So….

Seabass and I are pretty shocked at the interest we’ve received from readers around the world.  I had no idea that exposing the blase innards of my new mommy heart would attract such a crowd.  Thank you for the 5,000 hits and 200-something comments that it took me well over 2 hours of Seabass’ nap to read through.  What fun!

Seabass is one serious fuss monkey today (I think I had too much dairy in my WHITE SAUCE, TRIPLE CHEESE LASAGNA, do you?) so I’m going to make this post quick.  Putting on my mercenary hat:

All new subscribers to Higher Highs, Lower Lows by next Wednesday, July 28 will be entered to win a signed copy of the newly-released 6th edition of The Nursing Mother’s Companion by Kathleen Huggins.

And by “new subscribers” I mean anyone I didn’t already know before getting Freshly Pressed.

Back to the circus…

I’m Not That Mom

20 Jul

The reward for staying home

Pre-parents have to be the most optimistic folks in the world.  “I’m not going to disappear!” I told friends while pregnant.  “I refuse to be one of those new moms who vanishes the moment the baby’s born.  You’ll see me at all the same parties, I’ll go out to dinner, we’ll have you guys over – it will be exactly the same…only Seabass will be there, too.”

Well, shoot.  I wish I could be That Mom.  The one who looks stunning in a breezy summer dress at the restaurant, holding her bright-eyed baby loosely on her lap while sipping Prosecco, eating a chopped salad, and laughing contagiously.   The one who has no fear of a full calendar.  The one who puts her baby in the car seat and drives to Timbuktu while he sleeps peacefully.  The one who can nurse at the cafe while simultaneously reading the NY Times.  Who uses the baby as a weight for bicep curls.  Who showers.  Who even looks showered.

Coming to terms with the fact that I am not That Mom – and that Seabass is not that baby – has been a big, nasty adjustment.  It all started with Jake’s paternity leave.

He’d been approved for three weeks’ vacation time when the baby came, and we envisioned the four of us (me, Jake, C and Murph) going to the beach, wine tasting, and completing longstanding projects around the house.  Instead, we spent those 21 days bouncing on the exercise ball, changing diapers, nursing, swaddling, sleeping, and guessing a lot.  There were whole days spent in pajamas.  Whole days spent with furry teeth.

I wish I could say it got a lot better after those first few weeks, but it didn’t.  Seabass started waking up, revealing his true nature.  He screamed going on and coming off the breast (reflux), which meant I didn’t feel comfortable nursing in public.  He often couldn’t relax without being swaddled, which meant we couldn’t put him in the car seat to go grocery shopping.  His naps were sporadic at best, and they would only happen if he was at home in his crib.  He cried if he wasn’t eating.  He cried if he wasn’t sleeping.  The one “silver bullet” to keep him from howling was (is) the exercise ball, which I cannot and will not bring with me everywhere I go.

So instead, we stay home.

You know, everything in our society tells women that we can “have it all.”  As a new mom, I’ve been scolded countless times that if I don’t take care of myself, I can’t take care of the baby. But what exactly constitutes self-care?  Is it the bottom level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, including the basics of eating, sleeping and hygiene?  That’s not usually the context, no.  When people recommend that I “take care of myself,” it usually implies doing something I want to do, rather than something I need to do.  Very different.

And also, I’ve decided, not good for me.

How do I know this?  Whenever I “take care of myself” by making Seabass revolve around me – whether by working out, seeing friends, or cooking something other than Hamburger Helper – the baby flips out and inflicts pain back onto me.  I feel like we spend the next 24 hours re-calibrating through weeping and gnashing of teeth.  It’s dreadful.

But if I look first to the baby’s needs – a solid nap in his crib at the regular time, a long nursing in the rocking chair, keeping that stupid exercise ball within arms’ reach 24 hours a day – I find that my life is more serene and manageable, even if it has become tragically small.  (Approximately 900 square feet small!)  While parenting Seabass has meant an abrupt cessation of life as I once knew it, the more I’ve embraced the fact that I can’t be That Mom, the richer my life has become.

By no means is this a painless lesson, though.  The day I realized that having Seabass prohibited me from leaving the house, I sat down at my laptop to decline a full inbox worth of invitations for lunches, going-away parties, bridal showers, movies, writing work, walks on the beach, etc.  Fat tears squiggled down my cheeks as I repeated the sad refrain: “I’m sorry.  I just can’t commit to anything right now.  Maybe next December?”  But the moment I was truthful with them and myself was the first really freeing moment of my foray into parenthood thus far.

So, to all Those Moms out there who manage to do it all – have it all – while the baby just comes along for the ride, congratulations!  You are blessed.  But to the rest of you who struggle disproportionately with babies who can’t and won’t adjust, I grant you permission to go underground.  Forget having it all.  Do your best to enjoy having what you have.

See you next spring.  Maybe summer.

Brush With Fame

15 Jul

Wow.  Wow.  On a day when Seabass just CANNOT pull it together and has me chasing my tail in desperation, I’ve just been given a little pick-me-up.  It’s like I’ve made contact with Steven Spielberg or Chuck Norris or something.  Check it out:

Hello, please pardon the intrusion. I’m Mike Gatten, inventor of Miracle Blanket. Your blog was brought to my attention because of your mention of the Miracle Blanket. (And a great job telling your story I might add!) I can’t thank you and others enough for helping us spread the word because people just don’t believe us when we tell them it might be “this easy.” That’s why word-of-mouth has been the biggest source of growth for us since day one.

To show our gratitude I’d like to send you a free Miracle Blanket.

Please contact Susan in Marketing and let her know what color you would like.

And again, thank you very much.

Mike

Mike, from all the mommies of crazy colicky babies, thank you.  Your product kicks serious swaddle blanket heiney.

And sheesh, I guess people really do read mom blogs.

Hello, please pardon the intrusion. I’m Mike Gatten, inventor of Miracle Blanket. Your blog was brought to my attention because of your mention of the Miracle Blanket. (And a great job telling your story I might add!) I can’t thank you and others enough for helping us spread the word because people just don’t believe us when we tell them it might be “this easy.” That’s why word-of-mouth has been the biggest source of growth for us since day one.

To show our gratitude I’d like to send you a free Miracle Blanket.

Please contact Susan in Marketing and let her know what color you would like. Susan@MiracleBlanket.com or (214) 675.0539 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (214) 675.0539 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

And again, thank you very much.

Mike

I Grunt Like A Man

14 Jul

Our digital camera is officially toast.  Galldurnit.

At least we got our money’s worth out of it.  We bought the Sony Cyber Shot for our Odyssey and it’s taken well over ten thousand photos in its lifetime.  Between our trip and the new baby, that little machine just couldn’t take anymore adventure.  (Interestingly, we are in an age whose technology moves so fast that there is no existing framework for repair yet.  Jake called around to all the local camera shops, and the best help he received was an offer to send the camera to the manufacturer for us.  Can’t I do as much at the post office?)

Anyway, while perusing the Cyber Shots many photos, I came across something, well…how shall I put this?  It is a video taken in my hospital room the night Seabass was hatched.

I should preface this by saying I am not a big believer in birth videos.  I honestly cannot think of any time that it would be appropriate to watch one, other than maybe in a childbirth preparedness class.  But even that is iffy.  In fact, we knew the person in the video that was screened for our childbirth class.  Let me tell ya: You don’t really know the definition of awkward until you have a front row seat at the birth of your boss’ son.  True story.  Relations with his wife will never be quite the same again.

But what I found on our camera is a little different.  It is a clip taken from my hospital room by Jake while I am laboring in the bathroom.  You can’t see me – you can only hear me.  And that is plenty, I assure you.

The clip kicks off with a shot of the doorway to the bathroom, accompanied by a lovely cadence of very manly grunting, deep, low and percussive.  Coming from ME.  The frame shifts to show Jake’s face, brow furrowed and eyes sympathizing, encouraging me through the camera lens.   Then it’s back to the doorway with a variation on the grunting theme: grunt-SIGH.  grunt-SIGH.  It’s almost enchanting.

Listening to myself on that video is like poking a hole into a trance and having a peek.  Was that really me? It takes a second to recognize what’s going on, but then I remember: I was sitting on the exercise ball and had just started pushing, even though the nurses told me to hold off.  Ha! Like I had a choice in the matter.  Every part of my body – including my lungs and vocal cords – was telling me to strain strain strain as hard as I could to push Seabass out.

While I never sanctioned any videos during my labor, I’m so glad Jake went against my wishes on this one.  It’s the only record I have of C’s birth (all the photos from that day were taken after the baby had already arrived) and it tells the whole story in just a matter of seconds.  The lack of inhibition, the pain, the exhaustion, and the angst of birthing our baby – they’re all succinctly wrapped up like a haiku.  It’s kind of a gross little treasure.

I hesitate to open my life up to the WWW with this video, but after divulging that I’m incontinent and that my dog ate part of my son, an embarrassing birth video seems par for the course.  Enjoy my pain.

Seabass’ Happy Place

12 Jul

The camera isn’t working.  Significance: We’re losing precious moments of Seabass cuteness.  WHAT DO WE DO?!????

Don’t worry – we’re working on it.  (I should say Dad is working on it.  Do I have time to hunt down long-lost warranties and tinker with the delicate innards of a digital camera?  Ha!  No.)  In the meantime, how about we take a tour of the room where I spend about 40% of my time these days?  This way to the nursery!

Let me just start by saying that we are not rich.  (RANT: Remember the days when two people with college degrees from good schools got wonderful jobs and didn’t have to worry about money?  Not so anymore.  Welcome to San Luis Obispo, California, where the weather’s impeccable, the community, inviting, and where well-paying jobs and cheap homes are near-mythological.)  We knew we had to keep things cheap if we wanted a nursery with any kind of charm, so I turned to a terrific website called Oh-Dee-Doh.  Their focus is on real people who decorate spaces for their children with spunk and ingenuity.  One nursery, called “Charley Mae’s Modern Eclectic,” was the inspiration for our li’l Seabass’ nest.  I loved the hunting and fishing theme, the crispness of the colors and the use of vintage and homespun elements alongside modern pieces.

So I kinda copied it a lot.

For instance, Jake made a foam core buck head (from a pattern on the www) and covered it in fun patterned paper.  And I took a photo of a seabass using it as a template for this simple trophy fish.

I also admired the bird mobile in the Oh-Dee-Doh nursery, so I found a pattern for that and made it all out of scrap fabric and sticks from our yard.  It hangs over Seabass’ bed and sometimes I catch him watching it turn.  I love that something so functional and adorable was absolutely free!

As for the furniture in C’s nursery, I had to work some Craigslist magic.  The crib was originally $395, but we got it from a nice woman in Paso Robles for a mere $65 because it was missing hardware and had scratches where its last inhabitant munched on it as a teething aid.  With a little help from my handy dad, we got the hardware squared away while a little soap, water and elbow grease took care of the teeth marks.

The glider and ottoman were $10 on Craigslist because a young mom in Los Osos was tired of looking at the formula stains on the upholstery.  Ten bucks: are you serious?  Don’t mind if I do!  With the help of a staple gun, a sewing machine and some cheap gingham, I was able to reupholster that bad boy to be good-as-new.

The dresser/changing table was definitely the most challenging of the furniture pieces.  I loved its height and the shape of its legs, but it was from the home of a serious smoker.  After scrubbing/primering/painting the whole thing to eliminate the smell and replacing some of the hardware, I feel that the $65 we paid was a little steep for all the work that went into it.  I still love how it looks, though.

Other than a floor lamp and a shaggy brown rug, the rest of the room is comprised entirely of furnishings we already owned: A cheap standing bookshelf from Ikea years ago; concert posters for the bands My Morning Jacket and Calexico that I’d had framed for Jake; a pretty white shelf my dad made me for an apartment in San Francisco; mirrors in the shape of New Zealand’s two islands from our travels abroad; and a “howdy” wielded from barbed wire by a friend of my brother’s.  It felt good to find a home for these things that hadn’t fit in anywhere else in our tiny home.

When all was said and done, I truly fell in love with this room.  But there was still something missing: a night light!  I found the dachshund night light from the Oh-Dee-Doh nursery online, but it was out of our price range. (Meaning: it was more than four dollars.)   So I put it on C’s registry as one of only a few non-practical items (along with the Billy Bob teeth pacifier – I mean, come ON) hoping that someone would indulge us.  Two baby showers came and went, but no night light.

Then, on the day we came home with C from the hospital, we walked gingerly, nervously, to our front door with the little dude in his infant car seat and found a package from Oma on the doorstep.  The night light!  “It’s Seabass’ first birthday gift,” she told me on the phone.  Once again, hooray for grandmas!  At last, our sweet nest for the baby was complete.

http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/mini-nursery-tour-charley-maes-modern-eclectic-095040

My First Time

10 Jul

Jake, me and C went to our first farmers’ market this morning.  I love love love the Saturday A.M. market and had been missing it since I started taming the wild Seabass.  It was once a regular and cherished appointment I had with myself; suited in my grubby weekend clothes and armed with a cup of coffee in one hand and shopping list in the other, I used to wander the rows of fresh fruits and vegetables for as long as I wanted.  There were rambling visits with friends and idle chit-chat with farmers.  I was the portrait of leisure.

So this morning’s trip was a little different than that to which I’m accustomed.  For starters, I was no longer alone.  Now I had a sensitive nine-week-old and a nervous dad pushing baby around in the stroller – not exactly the recipe for relaxation.  Also, we’re coming to the crest of the summer fruits and vegetable wave and I can eat neither tomatoes nor strawberries due to breastfeeding.  Can you say criminal?  I spent half my time leering at the tomatoes and strawberries from afar, imagining what they taste like, smell like, feel like.  Father forgive me, for I have lusted.

While I didn’t get to drink coffee around the market (breastfeeding strikes again!) I did manage to chat briefly with a few friends.  But after the stroller paused en route for more than about 43 seconds, Seabass became anxious to move on.  When he finally started launching into the “you-pushed-it-too-far-Mom” cry, I decided to get serious about my shopping list.  In an attempt to satisfy my craving for summer fruits, I bought an outrageously large watermelon without stopping to think how I would carry it to the car.  I looked at Jake.  “I guess I could put it in the bottom of the stroller,” I reasoned, but two attempts proved me wrong.

“Here, you push the stroller and I’ll take the melon,” offered Jake.  So we traded duties and began our departure through the last row of the market, but a booth selling dried apricots stole my attention.  A young girl held a pair of tongs and a basket full of dried apricots, trying to lure passersby into sampling them.  Why no one did, I don’t understand.  I am the Free Sample Queen.

We must have been 15 t0 20 feet away from the booth, but I set my sights on those tongs and moved in for a delicious dried apricot before realizing I had walked away from the stroller, which was now rolling backwards toward an unsuspecting shopper.  Mind you, the baby was in the stroller.

Thankfully, Jake is an alert and aware human being.  He turned to see the stroller drifting and snapped me out of my apricot-induced trance just in time.  “Jaime?!?!” he called.  “Um, the stroller?”

Embarrassed, I ran back to the stroller and looked around to see if anyone caught me being a self-involved idiot.  An old man sitting on a stool snickered and told Jake, “You have to keep an eye on the baby and on her!”

“Yeah,” I said sheepishly as we walked away, “I’m not used to being a mother yet.  It’s my first time.”

Good Stuff #3: Grandmas, Biological and Otherwise

8 Jul

Grandma Lewis

If it weren’t for the fact that Seabass’ Grandma Lewis is in town right now, I may have been found under a bridge somewhere with a shopping cart and a pet rat, claiming I shot JFK.

Today is a tough day following yesterday’s tough day – and the cumulative toughness is getting to me.  But it’s not getting to Grandma Lewis.  In fact, I don’t think she even registers toughness.  Seabass can cry in her ear from sunup to sundown and she takes it in stride.  “His crying doesn’t bother me,” she says.  I swear she’s a lunatic, but I’ll take it.

This is her first grandbaby, so the lengths to which she’ll go for him are really something.  Earlier today, I had to hand the wee screaming C off to her in order to prepare a slap-dash lunch for friends coming over.  She picked him up and the yelling traveled from the kitchen back to his nursery where it trickled down to a bare whimper and eventually to silence.  A few moments later, I walked back to witness her trick for quieting him and found her bending at a back-breaking angle over the crib to let him suck her knuckles.  I think she would have kept doing it so long as he would have kept sucking.  Apparently, she was more than happy to do it.  Almost like it was a privilege.

It’s still difficult to picture myself as a mother, so imagining myself as a grandmother is nearly impossible.  But I see in both Grandma Lewis and Oma Johnson an insanely high threshold for pain that appears to be biologically specific only to grandmothers.  When Oma Johnson stayed with us for 3 weeks in June, she was up and at ’em every time Seabass so much as blinked funny.  (I’m pretty sure she could hear him blink, even on the baby monitor.)  “Mom, don’t worry about it – I’ll go,” I’d say.

“You sit.  I’ll handle this.”  And then she’d sashay off to coo and rattle cute nonsense into Seabass’ ear while I was left to eat my flavorless breastfeeding gruel or whatever in silence.

Oma Johnson

It’s not just biological grandmothers who have this super-human endurance, though.  A dear friend who lives two doors down and is like a second mother to me just loves – LOVES – baby C and will walk up and down the street with him for hours just so Jake and I can have an adult conversation that doesn’t cover the color of the baby’s poop for once.  One time she did this up and down the alley next to our house for 30 full minutes while C  let loose with a full-forced, purple-faced, tongue-waggling shriek, just so we could eat a meal in peace.  “Did his crying bother the neighbors?” I asked after she returned.

“Nah,” she said, shooing us with her hand, as though we were crazy to be bothered by infant death screeches.

The next day, one neighbor asked what I was eating to make C cry like that.  Another shared that they had to turn their TV volume to the maximum to drown out his crying.  So much for walking the alley.

But that’s just it: the grandmas don’t care.  It’s like they don’t hear it.  Seabass could be Rosemary’s baby, and they’d all find him charming and “feisty.”

All I have to say is thank goodness.

No offense, you hippies

7 Jul

The family bed of our fears

You’ll notice a lot of my posts begin with the words “Before we had Seabass, we thought….”  Why not add another to the pile?

No offense, but BEFORE WE HAD SEABASS, WE THOUGHT people who did “the family bed” were hippie Phish-listening weirdos.  (Really, no offense.)  There is that amazing scene in “Away We Go” where Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character describes the importance of a “continuum” from inside the womb to outside the womb which includes a bed for the whole family.  So…we basically didn’t want to be like that.  Just the crib for this here Seabass.  Yup, yup.

“Ha ha ha!” said God. “This will be the first in a series of many preconceived ideas which I will dash to the ground.”

The first night home from the hospital with our boy was rough.  I would do my best to soothe him to sleep for about 30 to 45 minutes before laying him down ever so gently.   But from his reaction to being placed in the crib, you’d think his sheets were burning hot baby-melting lava.  He just wouldn’t have it.  I’d try this for hours to no avail.

It was undeniable at this point that C preferred falling asleep close to my body.  Since he fell asleep almost immediately while nursing, I finally became so loony that I decided it was perfectly reasonable to sit in the rocking chair with him at the breast all night long.  Parenting’s all about sacrifice, right? I thought.  So for several nights, I sacrificed.  Until I woke up one morning with C drooping halfway out of my arms and saw that my ankles had swelled to the size of tree trunks.  Perhaps this is the wrong kind of sacrifice? I wondered.

Now, if I was reasonably anti-family bed before having C, Jake was violently anti-bed.  So it took a lot of courage to come to him with my little request.  When I asked if Seabass could share the bed with us, his mind raced forward to imagine our baby as a fifteen year-old who still cuddles up between us every night.  “For how long?” was his first question.

“I don’t know, until we see if it helps.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hey man, I’m the one with the elephant ankles.  Can we just try it?”

Since my husband is a loving, caring man, he said yes with the caveat that we re-assess at the one-month mark.

There was still one major issue to resolve: our bed.  We have slept in the full-sized bed I grew up with for the majority of our marriage because 1) it was free, 2) it’s pretty and I care about that sort of thing, and 3) we own sheets that fit it.  I’m aware that many people who try family bed are afraid of rolling over their newborns while sleeping, but frankly, I was more afraid that one of us adults would roll off the bed than onto the baby.  We tried family bed on the full-sized mattress for two nights, but neither Jake nor I slept much more than a wink.

It must have worked somewhat like sleep deprivation torture because on that third morning Jake woke up and announced that we were going to buy a brand new big bed.  I can’t emphasize enough how out of character this was for Jake.  No offense to my wonderful husband, but he is very cheap.  For him to buy a new bed so that the baby could sleep in it with us made me wonder if he was feeling alright.  But I jumped on the opportunity nonetheless.  Yay for new furniture!  Yay!  Yay!

The new queen-sized bed, mattress and box springs arrived just a few short hours later from a discount furniture place in town, and Jake scrambled to get the old bed out and the new bed in quickly thereafter.  To our surprise, the first night in the new bed was almost equally difficult as in the full-sized, though, as C grunted in that half-awake, half-asleep gassy state from sundown to sunrise.

“At least we have more space,” I reasoned.

“Yeah, but I don’t even feel like we’re allowed to enjoy our new bed,” lamented Jake.

The next night I assumed would be like the handful of nights before.  I nursed C in bed and then laid him as deftly and quietly as possible between Jake and I so that he could hopefully fall asleep.  But no.  With my first move, he writhed and cried.  Here we go again, I thought.  Jake had been seeming a bit zombie-ish from a lack of sleep lately, so I decided to bring C with me into the nursery to put a few walls between his crying and Jake’s ears.

I soothed and rocked and swung and bounced Seabass until I feared my arms might collapse.  But when he finally conked, I had this silly notion that maybe, just maybe, he’d sleep in the crib.  Call it my first case of mother’s intuition.

And wouldn’t you know it?  That cheeky little bugger slept five hours in the crib that night.  He hasn’t enjoyed our brand new family bed since.  But I’ll take it.  I’ve got a kid who loves to sleep in his own room and a new swingin’ piece of furniture.

ADDENDUM: Not two minutes after I wrote this, a friend posted this article on Facebook.  What timing!

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