Isaac's Four Month Appointment

"So, he's a handsome fellow isn't he?" Thus spoke our family doctor, Dr. Altman (who we really like), turning to face the two (female) medical students who were shadowing him. We never get tired of hearing that Isaac is a looker. We think so, but it's great to hear it from a professional who sees his share of babies.

Isaac is handsome and big! 16 lbs. 4 oz. (72nd percentile) and 27" (96th percentile). (For those curious, his head circumference remains average: 50th percentile. Isaac doesn't seem bothered by this.) Can we extrapolate from Isaac's growth curve (beyond the 30 months charted), and begin spending like he's already in the NBA? (Josh reports that even the 12th man on the bench, the guy who never dresses for games, and simply stands and cheers his teammates, makes several million bucks a year.) If nothing else, maybe Isaac will someday reach six feet, fulfilling his father's frustrated ambitions.

We also learned that I should NOT be picking earwax from Isaac's ear, confirming Josh's view that it should stay put ("We are not apes!"). Also, I need not be so concerned about Isaac getting water in his ears during bathtime. I don't know when I became so obsessed with ears.

And, we're happy to report that Isaac survived his shots--two in the thigh--with nary a cry. Of course, he did have somebody's nipple stuffed into his mouth. (Josh wonders if a similar treatment might be in order when he is faced with a difficult situation--feeling frustrated while working on his dissertation prospectus, for instance. We'll see.)

Adventures

Last Thursday, Isaac started daycare at Adventures Preschool in Belmont. It's about a 1/4 mile walk from our house. He spent from 8:30am-5:00pm there and it seemed pretty good. They did the cloth diapers and the caregivers seemed really kind and wonderful. Josh got a little upset after we left Isaac, but I was okay. Later on, I felt a little sad, but felt better when I called while I pumped at work. Josh called them too and they said Isaac was doing fine.

Tomorrow is his second day there. I'm feeling a lot more sad about that today. I have really loved my weekend with Isaac and Josh and want to have "weekend" everyday. I hold Isaac so much when I'm home and now that we're sleep training, I don't feel guilty about nursing all the time because I know he's not associating it with sleep--only food and me--that has made me just want to nurse whenever he wants and hold him close when he's not. I love him so much and wish that it was me who was going to spend his first Monday post-sleep training with him. Josh will be with him on Tuesdays and Fridays. I come home around 5pm and have him all to myself a lot at that point because Josh frequently leaves to go do work then (and stays working until late). I love those night times and doing our bedtime ritual together, but I love daytime too.

So, daycare is okay. It just simply isn't me.

Sleep!

From Isaac in early August

After much debate, Josh and I decided to try the sleep training program that Jenn and Paul used with Maya. It's called the Sleepeasy Solution, but really the advice is pretty ubiquitous: put your baby down in his crib awake for naps and bedtime. You can still nurse at night, it's just that Mom goes to baby an hour before he usually wakes up crying and encourages him (gently) to feed at the earlier time instead of "on demand" when he's crying and she's trying to soothe him.

So here's the results: AMAZING! First, you need to know where we've been. At first, Isaac was a fantastic sleeper but depended on the swaddle to get deep sleep. He quickly outgrew the swaddle and Josh and I suddenly had a horrible sleeper on our hands. Basically, sleep for the last month meant Isaac and I in the guest bed and Josh in our bed by himself. Isaac would cry about every hour and I'd nurse him every time to help him fall asleep again. I was getting only max two continuous hours of sleep without interruption and I've been incredibly sleep deprived because of it. I've felt extra moody, headache-y and I've made mistakes at work because of it (nothing too big).

SO, Friday night, we put Isaac to sleep awake and then braced ourselves for the crying. And...it never came! He spent twenty minutes making an "arrrr" sound that did not even come close to crying--trust me, unfortunately I know what his sad cry sounds like. I then "dream-nursed" him at 11pm, 2am and 4am. He cried for less than 10 minutes around 1:15 and so we did ONE check on him (no touching--only loving words). Then, at 6am, I woke him up! It was amazing. He was in his crib and I was in my bed with Josh at 5:59am--a first in weeks.

Saturday, we encouraged him to take naps every 2-2.5 hours and every time, he was awake when I finished nursing and put him in his crib. He slept something like 5 hours on Saturday. Here's the deal: babies his age should sleep about 3-4 hours everyday, but Isaac was sleeping more like an hour because naps were so hard for him. You can imagine that it must have felt crazy for him. Remarkably, the deep sleep Friday night made him more sleepy for the Saturday naps and he didn't cry AT ALL for any of them. In exchange though, he was super cranky and tired when he was awake.

Saturday night we did our bedtime routine again (bath, pjs, nursing and an O-M family rendition of "Waters of Babylon"). Immediate sleep. I dreamnursed again but moved the times to help him with the 1am waking (11pm, 1am). I was too tired to reset the alarm for another nurse and man did Isaac know it. He woke up at ~4am crying his head off. Josh tried doing checks, but the man was hungry. Eventually, I broke down and said, "it's light out so it's morning now." I went into Isaac's room and said that to my baby and then happily nursed him. Thankfully, Josh gave me an hour to keep sleeping after that because I was just starting to catch up on long-lost sleep and was very tired. Naps today were frequent and pretty flawless. My favorite nap was at Danielle and Zev's house. I put Isaac to sleep awake on their bed (don't worry--he can't roll, but still, he was in the middle of their king sized bed). Daniellle then put Izzy to sleep in his bed in their room. The cousins were having a sleepover for about an hour when it ended with Izzy's cry. We went in to find Izzy upset and Isaac blinking at us quietly on the bed. He was totally fine with getting up then anyway. Today, he's had about 4-5 hrs of naps.

In the "extra" time that Josh and I have gained by having him nap more, we organized our house, I made homemade pickles, worked on my lab meeting, I went to yoga and Josh ran 7 miles and I made baba ganoush. Right now, instead of being passed out on the guest bed after nursing, I am writing about my awesome weekend. Pretty sweet.

Drakes Island 2010

My mom and dad rented a big house on Drake's Island in Wells, Maine and invited us all to come for as much of the week as we wanted. I took Monday off so that we could stay a couple of nights. It was absolutely beautiful there--great swimming beach, a preserve close by for walking and a house big enough for a bunch of adults and babies to have their own space. Here's a video I took at the beach. Notice how empty the beach is and how beautiful it is there.

Lovey

We're trying to introduce a "transitional object" into Isaac's life to help him sleep at night. I wear this soft blanket under my clothes at night so that it smells like me. So far, he likes it enough to suck on it and hold it, but not enough to keep him from waking up every hour! Yes, it's that bad at night.

Cingstone_4th.MP4

Isaac had his first boat ride in early July. Let's just say it wasn't his favorite experience!

Reflections on my seven weeks at home with Isaac

Today, when Anique arrived home from Brandeis, I was baking zucchini bread and sauteing onions and summer squash, all from our CSA. Isaac was sitting at my feet in his bouncy chair, chewing on his "lovey"* On a happiness scale of 1 to 10--10 being "I found my hands and I never want to stop sucking on them!" and 1 being "I just woke up in my car seat"--Isaac was about a 4: tolerant. It had been an up-and-down day, filled with short naps, lots of fussing, and a few smiles thrown in when I stumbled upon the right combination of singing, bouncing, and general tom-foolery (Example: Isaac seemed particularly partial to my version of Beethoven's 5th, in which I sing (forte) "Isaac my BOY (hold) Isaac my BOY! (hold, then pianissimo) Isaac my boy, Isaac my boy, (falsetto) Isaac my boy ..." etc.). In many ways, it was just an average day. And yet looking back on it, with one eye on this coming Thursday when Isaac is to begin daycare, I see how much he and I have grown up in these past weeks since Anique went back to work.

On our second morning together, I called Anique in tears. "I can't do this," I told her. In the background, Isaac could be heard howling, while he flailed his little fists at the injustice of having his diaper changed. Since then, I've grown harder. Yesterday, when Isaac woke up during my drive to pick up Anique at Brandeis, I talked to him. I sang to him. I turned up his favorite radio station--Jammin' 94.5-- but even Usher's smooth tones ("Isaac let me love you down") failed to soothe him. So, I kept driving. When we got to Brandeis, I picked him up and held him and he stopped crying. That was it. Seven weeks ago, I might have pulled over on the side of Route 117, hazard lights flashing, pacifier in hand. Certainly, I would have felt sick to my stomach. I hope I don't seem like a monster, because I hate it when Isaac cries, but I think for me to be a good dad, and to be a good PCP these past weeks, I needed to man up a little. To be attentive to his needs, I had to put my own aside, to stop taking his cry as a personal rebuke: "You are a crappy daddy! Where's Mom?" Now when Isaac cries, I'm less shell-shocked. I hug him, offer him the bottle, check his diaper, run through my bag of tricks ("Isaac my BOY") and usually that does it.

Just after Isaac was born, I was frequently asked the question, "What does it feel like to be a dad?" and I always struggled to come up with an answer, usually settling on the accurate if underwhelming "it's pretty awesome." If someone was to ask me that same question now, I'd say that it doesn't feel like anything. It's like asking a dog what it feels like to be a dog. The dog can't pause, step outside of itself, and provide you with a thoughtful response, before returning to its dog-identity and sniffing your crotch. The identity "DAD" has become similarly ingrained for me. I'm in it. All the time. Even calling this post a "reflection" seems a little disingenuous. While I can compare the kind of dad I was when I started staying home with Isaac to the dad I am today, I have trouble remembering what it felt like to not be a dad. And when I think of what Thursday morning will feel like, when I sit down to the work I've been putting off for two months, and Isaac spends his first day in the company of total strangers (albeit caring ones who seem really nice) I hope that the lessons he's taught me stick. I'll need to man up a little.

*A half-bear, half-washcloth thingy that Anique wears under her clothes and which we intend to place with Isaac in his crib during nap times. However, I'm a bit alarmed by the speed with which Isaac manages to cover his entire face with the "lovey." Though Anique demonstrated that it's impossible for anyone to suffocate while playing with his lovey (but can he go blind? HA!), spreading the wash-cloth part tightly over her mouth to prove its breathability, I'm still not-quite convinced. Why are babies so prone to suffocation?