o frabjous day!

I see my little update posts on parenting ground to a halt at 7 weeks. From memory, that’s when things started to get easier (more sleep, less time spent frantically jiggling Edward to keep him happy), and I think I started doing other things and not focussing entirely on the baby.

Four months old is a great age, although I keep saying that with every week that passes. He’s generally a happy, easygoing baby, smiley and relaxed in most situations.

Things I’m enjoying at 4 months:
1. Laughter! Oh, the laughter, every day – when his father arrives home from work, when I dangle a cloth above his head, when I pick him up to take him to the bath – joyful gurgling little chuckles, and the most utterly delightful sound on earth.
2. His intense concentration and happiness when he manages to do things like roll over (which he now does quite a few times every day, from back to front), and his contented peaceful expression when he sucks his thumb.
3. His ridiculously huge thighs and calves – I’m pretty sure most of his weight is concentrated in his legs.
3. I can finally put sleeping in the enjoyment column! After a tiny bit of a regression, he’s back to generally only needing two feeds a night, which is resulting in much more sleep for us both. He does wake up very early (between 4:30 and 5:30, generally), but I’ve started putting him back in his bassinet for his first sleep of the day, and having between an hour to two hours by myself, which is utter bliss.

Things I’m not enjoying at 4 months:
1. I am getting rather sick of the way he only sleeps in the carrier during the day – it is now particularly uncomfortable in the current sticky summer humidity. I’m slowly trying to break him of the habit (hence the first sleep of the day in the bassinet) but it’s a slow process.
2. I need to express milk for my return to work in January, and for some reason I’m finding it really hard to get organised enough to do these even once a day, let alone twice. Fitting it in around baby caring is frustrating me.
3. He has started teething, and while he’s not making too much of a fuss, he is a bit more clingy and grizzly than usual. It’s not quite as easy to palm him off to his grandparents, alas. I’m hoping his easy gregariousness will return when these first teeth come through.

I look back at the last thing I wrote here, which was when Edward was 7 weeks old – he’s 11 weeks old tomorrow, and I’m not entirely sure where that time has gone.

Parenthood continues to become more enjoyable with each week. Teddy is such a smiley happy boy, cooing and gurgling away, enjoying listening to stories and pram rides and lying around kicking energetically. In the last couple of weeks he has started, glory of glories, sleeping reasonably well at night. I record the minutiae of the hours spent in his bassinette on the calendar each day, looking back proudly over his progress in the last month, and then when I’m actually conversing with other adults I try and remember that not everyone in my life is quite as interested in how many hours he slept the previous night as I am.

Other than parenting, I sometimes feel that I’m not achieving much with my days. I need projects, as without goals and lists, achieving things during the day is not my forte, particularly when they have to be slotted in around Edward’s brief naps in the baby carrier. My mother has been here visiting and working miracles on the garden, so I am planning (with the my usual good intentions) to include some small regular garden maintenance on my to-do list. [I have also spent about a week occasionally adding a sentence to the above paragraphs – this is the slowest composing of a blog post ever.]

I’m going to a mother’s group next week, which I’m looking forward to – I’m beginning to feel a little isolated, without seeing work colleagues and friends and choir members on aregular basis. A bit of social interaction will be a pleasant addition to the week.

Things I’m enjoying with Edward in week 7:
1. His rapidly increasing independence over the last two or three days – he now sits in his bouncer or lies next to me for quite long periods of time, letting me do things like eat lunch unencumbered. Such luxury!
2. Our new nightly routine, which is a feed and a bath just before the husband arrives home from work, which generally results in a happy baby spending a bit of time with his father before bed. They’ve been dancing around to heavy metal, which Edward appears to find very relaxing, as he usually falls asleep in the husband’s arms. The husband thinks it’s the complex rhythyms, I think it’s the similarity to white noise.
3. His rather odd mullet hairstyle, courtesy of the gradually thinning hair he had at birth – the longest bit is still right at the back of his head.
4. Seeing him grip onto a toy for the first time just this minute – by accident, I’m sure, but he appeared to enjoy the experience.
5. Being able to go out for trips with him with minimal fuss – to the grocery store, an ABA meeting, visiting his Nonna & Pop – and watching him enjoy visiting people, looking about at all the different sights and staring intently into different faces.

Things I’m not enjoying with Edward in week 7:
1. Scrubbing pooey nappies – the slimy feel of baby poo under your fingers is a fairly unpleasant sensation.
2. There’s not too many other things I’m not enjoying – his sleeping, I suppose, which is still not ideal, but continues to improve in small ways. I was getting a bit tired of being attached to him all day during the week, but now that he’s so much more independent (comparitively speaking) I’m enjoying the time with him a lot more.

Things I’m enjoying with Edward in week 5:
1. Smiles! And other happy and joyful expressions. Not really directed at me yet, but the wall, window and other inanimate objects have been treated to delighted grins. It makes such a difference, being able to think, “Ah! He’s really happy right now,” instead of trying to interpret various blank stares.
2. His increasing chubbiness – tiny rolls of fat on his thighs, neck and wrists, and his round chipmunk cheeks.
3. The strength in his legs as he pushes himself up into a standing position when we hold him, eyes opened frantically wide and arms shaking with excitement or effort.
4. The excited wide eyes and frantically kicking legs when his father arrived home while he was in the bath.
5. He can be left in his bouncer or lying on his back for much longer, happily kicking and staring around, making the occasional gurgle and “ah!” noise.

Things I’m not enjoying with Edward in week 5:
1. His sleep is improving, as a general rule, but I never know what he’s going to do – is tonight going to be one where he starts with a good three to four hour sleep, or will he wake up after a mere hour. It makes it difficult to relax and sleep, not knowing what’s ahead for the evening.
2. The way the disposable nappies I put him in at night (and when I run out of clean cloth nappies) leak, and the amount of pee-soaked clothing I have to wash as a result.

I have really noticed a big difference in him this week – the strangely alien newborn we brought home is slowly disappearing, and being replaced by a sturdy, chubby little baby. I love plopping him in his bouncer on the kitchen floor in the late afternoons while I get dinner ready, chatting to him as he gazed around intently.

We’ve now been out on several excursions together – to an ABA meeting, to visit his grandparents, to the library – and it’s been relatively stress free. He enjoys going out, I think, seeing new things, and even riding in the car (after an initial bit of yelling). I feel much more confident, and have moved beyond the stage of spending a lot of the day staring at him – I feel like I can now just go about normal life (well, once I’ve discovered what that is, without full time paid work) and he can accompany me. To an extent. Dependent on his moods, of course!

Things I’m enjoying with Edward in week 3:
1. Increasing eye contact, and the way he gazes directly up at me.
2. The heavy relaxed feel of his body when he falls asleep in my arms or on my chest.
3. The way his mouth twitches into an almost-smile when he’s asleep.
4. Watching him kick energetically in the bath, with a look of serious concentration on his face.
5. His happy awake times, lying propped against my knees or in his bouncer, or lying on the bed next to me, staring around at everything, thrashing his arms around enthusiastically.
6. How easy his crying is to soothe with a walk in the carrier.
7. Watching him grow almost every day, developing rolls on his thighs and a little double chin.

Things I’m not enjoying with Edward in week 3:
1. Waking up every 1.5 hours at night (his current routine) ohgodwhenwillitendohgod.
2. The random and occasional crying that I put down to stomach pains – manageable during the day, a bit dreadful at night. Thankfully it doesn’t happen much.
3. When I’m exhausted, and he won’t sit contentedly with me but wants to be on the move. Which means me being on the move, whether I like it or not.

We have a bit of a daily routine now that Edward has settled into a… well, I’m not sure it could be called a pattern, but he mostly does a feed, play, sleep thing during the day. “Play” at this stage is where he’s happily awake. Edward is not what I’d call a placid baby – he will be chirpy and happy in the one place for a certain amount of time, but then his scrunched face and whinging cry will indicate that he would quite like to be somewhere different now. I’ve been trying to do different things with him during his “play” stages – propping him up on my knees in bed so he can admire the sunshine through the window, lying him on a blanket on the grass while I read and chat to him, taking him for a walk in the pram, and doing chores with him strapped in the carrier (an Ergo carrier with a newborn insert, which is the most brilliant thing ever – being able to soothe crying fits by walking him in the carrier is a lifesaver).

I am eagerly anticipating his first smiles and coos, which should happen in week 6 – seeing those indications of happiness and awareness is going to be amazing.

Our son was born on Friday the 13th, the day after his due date. So far, he has been demonstrating his skills at eating, gaining weight, blinking solemnly and staring. His skill set does not yet include any great prowess with sleeping, but I’m dealing surprisingly well with getting sleep in one hour (and very occasional two hour) blocks.

I had thought I would cry with happiness when I first saw him. When he was put on my chest after he was born, I thought “Huh, a baby,” but didn’t feel a rush of love and affection. That grew over the next two days, until I was having incoherent conversations with the husband while weeping over the baby’s incredible beauty. Tiredness may have contributed to this, of course, but I like to think it was motherhood laced with a dash of hormones.

Edward was a very much desired and planned for baby, and yet his arrival still felt a bit like a wrecking ball. I was sitting with him after a couple of days at home, incredibly sleep deprived, thinking dazedly, “I did want this, right? I wanted my entire life to change? I’m pretty sure I did.” It was nothing like I had imagined – was in fact much harder than I has imagined. I couldn’t plan anything – my hours revolved in a tight focussed orbit over the erratic and ever changing desires of my baby. You want to be fed? You’ve wet yourself again? You won’t sleep unless we’re holding you? Wow, you really won’t sleep unless we’re holding you. That’s a fun trick.

It has become much easier – the first week was probably the toughest, and coming home from hospital after little to no sleep on the ward didn’t help with that. The birth went very well, and the staff at Logan Hospital were wonderful, but life in the maternity wards was a special kind of hell. If a baby wasn’t screaming, then the woman whose baby was in the special care nursery was sobbing, the woman who had just had a Caesarian was throwing up violently, or the woman in the next bed was eating ice. Incessantly and very loudly, until I wanted to go over and tape her mouth shut. The only sleep I really got was snatched during the day, while the husband sat in a chair beside me and cuddled the baby.

Two weeks into parenting and I feel a bit more competent at it. Getting to know Edward a little has helped enormously – if I have some vague idea of what he’s likely to do next, I feel much more in control. An illusion, sure, but it’s one I’m sticking with. I still stuff up all the time of course, fruitlessly rocking him while he screams and then realising belatedly that he’s hungry, even if he only fed a little while ago. He glares balefully up at me while he sucks, marvelling at my stupidity when he so clearly told me what he wanted.

With every day it becomes easier and more rewarding, and I’m sure this will increase exponentially as he starts to respond to us. For now I have to be satisfied with the way he gazes seriously up into my face, like he’s memorising my features, and the way his hands clutch at me, clinging onto my arm when I give him a bath, clearly communicating his scepticism as to whether I’m holding him quite securely enough.