It’s 3AM. I can’t sleep. This is unusual. While I am self-admittedly the world’s worst sleeper, I usually just get a poor night’s sleep; I don’t often reach a point where I can’t fall asleep. Especially after a day as active’s as today: 3+ hours spent walking around Manhattan on top of the usual Christmas Craziness.
Why can’t I sleep, I’ll pretend you asked?
Well, at about 2:15, Zazzy woke up to use the bathroom. Remarkably, this is actually the first occurrence of her waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom during the pregnancy. She had been fortunate enough to maintain enough bladder-control/bladder-volume/magical-pregnant-lady-power to make it through the night. So her actions tonight were new and unprecedented. For whatever reason, the entirety of the time she was in the bathroom, I lay awake, terrified that I was going to be called upon because Something Was Happening With The Baby. We just reached 26 weeks, which I understand to be the point of viability. This makes me think that Something Happening To The Baby has largely shifted from us losing the baby to us having the baby. While this is undoubtedly a positive transition, it also means that I may be called upon at 3am, or some other such ungodly time, to start providing for the baby… far earlier than expected.
While Zazzy’s trip to the bathroom was wholly uneventful, I have been lying in bed staring at the ceiling thinking of all the things I have been doing, have not been doing, should be doing, and don’t even know about doing to provide for this child. We don’t yet have a “birth plan”, meaning Something Happening tonight would have called for ad libbing. My ethos in life is to TCB (Take Care of Business) and I’d like to think that if called upon, I’d snap into action and make all the necessary playcalls like Jim Kelly in his prime. But Jim Kelly didn’t have his child’s future on the line when driving up and down the field*. This probably made it easier for him to sleep at 3AM.
Gulp.
My hope is that researching job openings in administration will be sufficiently calming/boring to soothe the anxiety and put me back to sleep. Either that, or I’ll just continue to write long-winded rants on Rose’s very excellent post.
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* To those who don’t know me well, the fact that I consider caring for a baby more important than trying to win the Super Bowl is indicative of some sort of maturation process that is equal parts scary, unlikely, and unbelievable for me. Way to go, baby: you just knocked “Winning the Super Bowl” from #3 on my list of priorities**.
** Top 5 List of Priorities prior to tonight: 1) Don’t die in an unawesome way, 2) Don’t hurt Zazzy physically or emotionally in a way likely to leave permanent damage, 3) Win Super Bowl, 4) Provide for abstract concept of baby, 5) Avoid sea monsters***.
Top 5 List of Priorities now: 1.) Provide for very concrete reality of baby, 2) Don’t die… at all, 3) Don’t hurt Zazzy physically or emotionally in a way likely to leave permanent damage, 4) Avoid sea monsters, 5) Win Super Bowl.
*** A few notes on sea monsters… a) Avoiding them ranked much higher on this list prior to moving to the mountains, b) While dying at the hand (tentacle?) of a sea monster would undoubtedly be an awesome way to go, the realization of an irrational fear is wholly unawesome, and c) This jumps ahead of winning the Super Bowl because of its impact on New Priorities #1, #2, and #3.
For the first and hopefully the last time, I will say this: Fish you, baby.
All the more awesome that you wrote this in the middle of the night.
For the first and hopefully the last time, I will say this: Fish you, baby.
I regret to say that it is unlikely to be the last time. If it is not, take comfort that it will be totally normal.
on the plus side, you can have a good cry with the baby and there’s no judgement. but you’ll never get an answer to “what do you want!?!”
Before The Boy was born, I went to a “Daddy Boot Camp” thingy that had a substantial portion devoted to the dangers of “Shaking the Baby” (not a euphemism), in which we learned that “Shaking the Baby” was, in fact, Really Really Bad.
And at the time I, like any Right-Thinking-Person, thought “who Shakes a Baby? Not anyone in their Right Mind, that’s for sure.”
And I have never Shaken a Baby (you win this time, Daddy Boot Camp!)
But I HAVE reached that state of sleep-deprived frustrated madness that allows you to briefly glimpse how someone else COULD Shake a Baby.
Heh. People (my wife included) often assume that because I teach young children, I know all about babies. I don’t. The difference between an infant or even a toddler at a 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old is like the difference between an adult and a rocking chair. I don’t know crap about babies. I don’t know how to hold them. I don’t know when they’re supposed to walk (8 months?), talk (2 years?), or be potty trained (3 weeks???). I don’t know their developmental milestones.
So while my formal training and expertise will prove little use until the child is at least 2 1/2, I do hope that my on-the-ground experience with young children, the patience it requires, the ability to suspend one’s own emotional needs/responses in service of another, the ability to make the “tough call” you know is in someone else’s best interests despite the protests… I hope all THAT stays with me and serves me throughout the early days, weeks, months, and years.
But just in case… where do I sign up for Daddy Boot Camp?
who Shakes a Baby?
Larry (of Larry, Darryl, and Darryl) proposed to campaign for mayor by kissing hands and shaking babies.
Thanks…?
Oh, dear. I was (it seems unsuccessfully) to reassure that thinking things like “fish you, baby” (as noted by Glyph above) seem like the kind of monstrous horror nobody should allow themselves to feel, but that they are, in fact, very common.
When the Critter was born, it took a long, long time for me to feel that “bond” I’d been told all Right-Thinking parents feel the moment they lay eyes on their kid. What I felt was a dizzying sense of responsibility, and there were many, many long nights where “fish you, baby” thoughts popped unbidden into my hed. And it felt totally wretched.
And the Something Ineffable happened, and I would literally walk into a buzzsaw for that kid. And when Squirrel came around, I was a lot more prepared for a more realistic set of emotions than the ones I thought I “should” have the first time around. And as a result, I’m way less stressed out by the rigors of parenting an infant. (It helps that she sleeps very well for a baby.)
Anyhow, the comment above was meant to be somehow reassuring. I would truly regret it if it accomplished the opposite.
Whoo, boy. I really should proofread these comments better. That should read:
“I was trying (it seems unsuccessfully) to reassure”
and
“And the Something Ineffable happened, and now I would literally walk into a buzzsaw for that kid. “
Hahaha, sorry, I totally got the reassurance thing. I was just being difficult. Thanks!
I feel better about my fear of spiders now, thank you.
Kazzy also disclosed a fear of zombies recently. When he sees my zombie sea monster Halloween costume, he’s gonna DIE.
On a semi-related note, if you’ve seen “Cabin in the Woods”, then you’ll know mermen should be on the “to be feared” list also.
Top Three Irrational Kazzy Fears:
1.) Sea monsters
2.) Zombies (more on this later)
3.) Dropping keys down apartment garbage chute.
My only really deep fear is of walking on ice over frozen bodies of water; lakes, etc. I don’t care if it’s four feet deep. Cannot do that. And when our children were small, my sweetie would take them out on lakes; for the experience that the place where, just a few months earlier, we rowed a boat, now, we can stand.
Not me. Knees quiver and lock. Heart palpitates. Stomach clenches. Sweat freezes.
And there is no reason I can trace to cause this fear. None.
Fear of sea monsters, zombies, and dropping keys down chutes, on the other hand, while horrid to hold, seem perfectly reasonable.
Fear of babies fermenting in the womb, also. First children are an experiment in parenting. Amazing that so many of them survive; they are more resilient then we realize; if one can refrain from shaking them to see if they make good bobble heads.
Crying, without cease, is a common cause of shaking. “Please stop, baby.” If baby has shaving-cream from a can textured BMs and cries in distress before producing them, there may be a reason — the overly-large proteins in cows milk are difficult for baby’s to digest.* (Russell, please feel free to chip in here.) For nursing mothers, cutting cows milk from the diet might prove a simple fix. For formula-fed babies, a switch to a soy-based formula can help.
Often, just a few weeks is all that’s needed; the test is simple — drink a small glass of milk, and see what happens.
* This lesson learned the hard way.
Sea monsters and zombies are wholly unreasonable, especially if I actually go into depth on the zombie fear.
The key thing was reasonable because there was real potential for it to happen, but it shouldn’t have given me palpitations whenever I realized I had my car keys in the same hand as the garbage and OHMYGOD what if they had fallen?!?!