It has been painfully apparent to me lately that parenthood is rife with irony and irrational circumstances. I say painfully apparent because few words describe the night of sleep we didn’t have had Saturday better than painful.
OBaby’s Nana was with him for the evening and bedtime that night, and since we haven’t quite figured out the whole bottle feeding thing, we just let him eat what he’ll eat of my pumped milk. He packed away 11 ounces. ELEVEN OUNCES. That is about 2x as much as he would get from me. You would think (and that’s where it would all go wrong – thinking) that a baby who had been pumped full of warm mommy milk would be out like a proverbial light.
But, if you had that seemingly rational thought, you would be all the more bitter at 10:45 when he woke after 2.5 hours of sleep. And also when he woke at 1:30am. And finally, you would be spitting in the face of reason at 3:30am when your listless babe joined you in your bed.
You should probably not even get me started on the vigor with which OBaby crawls after, ironically, the things he is not allowed to have and then looks right through the child-safe toy you are waving in front of his face.
No amount of mental math will solve the problem of the overtired baby that will not sleep either. Believe me, I’ve tried.
The irony of the evening in: It would seem that we don’t get out as much as we used to. We aren’t hermits by any means, it just takes a little more oomph to get out the door as a family (read: carrying pounds upon pounds of extra crap) than it did as a couple. So, reasonably, you would think we have many a lazy evening in, relaxing around the house. Au contraire, mes amis, au contraire. Sure, we watched ourselves some Olympic cross country skiing on Sunday afternoon, but that was while we bounced, rocked, danced, crawled with, rolled around by, changed, fed, cleaned, burped, swung, carried, wore and otherwise ENTERTAINED the fruit of our loins.
Parents know no such thing as a lazy evening at home despite the increasing number of evenings we spend at home.
I could list 18 billion other situations where as a parent you are SURE that A + B will lead to C, but then your child pulls freaking φ (phi) out of their pocket seemingly just to mess with you and your rationally thinking self.
So, in short my advice is to stop it. Stop thinking rationally, stop assuming that something will naturally result from something else. You will probably just be flustered when your expected out come spits up all over your clothes as you are trying to rush out the door.
Set your expectations aside and instead, enjoy each unpredictable moment with the little person that evokes in you irrationally large amounts of love.
You couldn’t have said that any better! And tis why my husband and I only go out oh about once or twice a year without our children. :)
i loved the “fruit of our loins” description of OBaby :)
we haven’t really gone out that much with Joshua since he’s so unpredictable as to when he’ll need to eat or sleep!
and yesterday, he literally cried no matter what we did – all day, so i feel your pain!
Too funny…and yet NOT!! I totally hear ya. Our 15 month old goes to bed without a hitch every single night!! That is, except for last night! We had my sister and her hubby over and were going to have a crab and lobster fest once all the kids were in bed! Well, guess who screamed when we put him down last night, no amount of comforting, sips of water, tylenol would help. So guess who sat on my lap at the special, quiet romantic dinner!! Oh well, after 4 kids…”I should have known!”
p.s. I noticed you’re not on the Top Mommy blogs anymore?? That is always how I found you. Glad I finally found it again. Now it’s in my faves!
It gets better. Oh I promise it get so much better and so much easier.
I think I was right at the point you were at now where I thought this was my life forever. Not that I didnt LOVE my son more than anything in the world, but the constant entertaining was getting a little old and frustrating.
Now he is more mobile (the house is baby proofed a little and he’s learning what is okay and not okay to touch) and he is almost more happy quietly playing by himself then us playing with him.
It gets better….
I’m so glad I don’t have the only cranky, overtired infant who laughs at the face of sleep at 2 am!
I just saw the picture of you and your little guy on Cupcake ’10, and was so surprised – he looks so much like my baby boy! If you click over to my blog (which I don’t really do anymore) and scroll down a little, there’s a picture of him in his bear suit. Made me laugh.
Stopping by from POM and I love your blog! Your son is SO adorable!
Ps. Following you on Twitter. :)
Oh, SO true. My seven-month old has been waking me up nearly 8 times a night…all in the name of teeth. Just when I thought things were getting better….sigh.
Hang in there, mama!
I just love the hat. It is super cute!
Oh it’s so very very true! But he is so very cute too. :) That’s probably why we “let them” get away with it huh?? :)
Hang in there!
love the post, thanks! we’ve had sleep problems (to say the least) with our babe. from 3 to 8 1/2 months old he got up every 1-2 hours…ugh. it finally started getting better a couple of weeks ago, only to regress back to square 1 the last few nights. we make a conscious effort every day to enjoy our cute (and surprisingly awake, even though we aren’t) bundle of joy, even though we are dog tired! :) your posts are like a glimpse into my own life, and they are always refreshing! thanks!
I still have no idea how I got past alive those early years, and with two of ‘em!!
11oz? Oh my! I would guess his little belly hurt from all that. When I’m away from Tommy for eight hours at work, he takes 10oz the entire day–two 5oz bottles.
That’s what I was telling her!! :) Miles STILL only has 5oz bottles at 14 months old.
He just found a sucker in grandma and knew she would keep giving him more! :)
Oh yes! Tommy would drink through the 150oz I have in the freezer in one week if we’d let him!
You have a way of writing that puts it all out there, but at the same time, makes it not seem TOO terribly bad. :o) But I’m sure that’s because I’m reading it after a long nights sleep and sitting on my comfy couch watching the Olympics with nothing but the ring of my cell phone or question from my hubby to distract me. But you do make parenting sound exhausting/hard/tiring… but FUN! :o)
That’s the huge thing – have no expectations and you’ll be golden :)
He is so sweet… seriously!
this post rings so true to me right now. i have my 3rd baby here. you would think i had some onside knowledge, some motherly understanding of how babies work. but, just when i think i understand, he throws me a curve ball. you are so right, just go into each day with no expectations and things will go fine. the minute we try to “plan” or “expect”, it’s all down hill.
that little man is soooooooo cute!!!!
I adore these get-ready-for-parenthood posts. They pump me up for…well, the rest of my life. :)
Maybe, perhaps, it might comfort you if I share that our first 15 months with Gabe was extremely hard and unpredictable? OK, here’s the comforting part — it’s better now that he’s 2.5! The baby months are so rough because they are these little dependent and awesomely cute beings that just don’t make a lot of sense. And they cannot talk much or reason their feelings. So yes, expectations during the first year are frustrating. But as OBaby turns into OToddler, you’ll begin to lay some expectations and what you expect might actually start happening! The joy!! :) In the meantime, I think you’re onto something by just enjoying the unpredictable.
Preach the word, sister. Children challenge even the Vulcans among us.
If I didn’t know better, I would think that my little man is Obaby’s twin!! So many times when I read your blog I think, “Oh my gosh, that is so something mine would do or just did today”!! It is crazy. But thanks for letting me know that I’m not the only one in this journey. And why is that I can give my son a REAL remote that doesn’t work anymore and he could care less but will scream and cry for the one that does work? How does he know?
I agree with the last sentence… in a blink on an eye (although it doesn’t feel like it in the blizzard… keep digging) he will be the one with weekend plans… We actually had to set a curfew for our soon to be 15 year old girlie, as she now has a life that doesn’t just involve us or Friday night sleepovers… Now, most nights I go to bed before the girls, they do their own laundry, and when they get sick, they open the medicine cabinet and take whatever medicine fits their symptoms… I know this is the goal… independent, self-reliant humans… but I must admit as I read your post a tear came to my eye… I miss those “hard” days when they were totally dependant on me…
I agree with DanO…that hat is TOO CUTE.
Maybe I should stop commenting on OBaby’s outfits and start commenting on your content.
We are homebodies now, so I am anxious to see how much more I will enjoy going out whenever we have our first. :)
I get it. I TOTALLY get it. I cant remember the last time I slept through the night. My little Audrey slept from 11:30 to 5:30 this morning and I started praising Jesus and crying because I had slept for 4 hours straight. (the middle child got up in there and crawled into bed with us which meant I slept on 4in. of bed for a few hours)
Anywho… talk about a rambling comment…
Be blessed-
Amanda
What a sweet post and a great reminder too. My youngest is 4 and still crawls into bed with us on most nights, but he’s just so darn cute when he does it!
What a great post, girl!
And I TOTALLY understand you!
I think Jason and I have been out, without either child, like …. oh geez, I have no clue … probably 10 times total. That’s over the course of six years.
We’re not complainin’ though … really. They’re usually pretty well-behaved and there aren’t many places we like to go that they wouldn’t be welcome. We prefer our date nights at home, anway … since we don’t eat out much.
We do a Family Bedroom, so we’re all in one room … on our own mattresses. That won’t last much longer, since our oldest is very clearly getting very much ready for her own space. You’d think (there I go again — thinking), though, that having our 16 month old right next to me (on her own mattress), to make night nursing easier would just make the overall night easier, right? HA!
Well, ok, so those nights she only wakes up one-three times aren’t so bad. But those nights she wakes up four, five, SIX times — even though she PIGGED out before bed? Yeah … not fun.