Did Somebody Say Squeeeee?

Finally! Snippet went to bed early, after a fun day shopping with friends, so I actually have some time (and energy!) to write a blogpost. I feel like so much has happened since the last time I wrote anything worth reading, and yet, I've just banked most of it in my mind, so it's no longer teeming at the surface. In other words, I'm drawing a bit of a blank. Mommybrain, one of my friends tells me. Sounds like a good excuse for all sorts of things, and I just may start using it.

The most celebrated news of late is Snippet's Big Roll Times Two. He rolled, and I saw it while Jake was not home. It was certified. So, when I set Snippet up for some Tummy Time Torture the next afternoon, I got the camcorder going and was able to film his second roll, which Jake was also pissed he missed. There has not yet been a third roll, but I'm sure with more TTT, there will be continued progress. If he had done it only once, I would have convinced myself it was a fluke, but if you check out the video, you'll see the following: I did NOT set him up, I did NOT give him a nudge, and it was a full nice flip (not some fake half-flip applauded as the real deal.) Here's a link to Snippet's Big Roll on the private picture blog. It's four minutes of grueling suspense, though you might want to turn the volume down, as I can't imagine a time when my voice was more high-pitched and ridiculous.

The big switch to Snippet's crib has been.....delayed. I attempted it twice and both times if failed, though for different reasons. The first time he slept in his crib a few hours, but after his first feeding, I brought him back to the bassinet. It just felt weird having him so far away, but I decided I would try the crib again the next night. That time, he had to get very chatty before I finally woke up to feed him and once he was awake, he decided it was Fun-Time Nursery Hour. Normally when he wakes me up to nurse, he stays in a blissful zombie state with his eyes still closed, just becoming conscious enough to remember how to swallow. But, since he had to rouse himself fairly well in order to get loud enough for me to hear him, he actually woke himself all the way up and wanted to laugh and giggle and kick and flop around for 45 minutes before I could get him settled back down. Did I mention this little shindig took place at 2am? You can surely sympathize with the fact that I have not attempted the Great Crib Transition again. I think I'm going to have to buy the damn monitor so that I can hear him in his early stirrings. I hate spending money on it, in case I get it and still can't hear those early hungry noises, but since the bassinet is becoming laughingly small, he will soon have no choice but to sleep in the crib. I'll probably wait a few weeks to buy the monitor, just so I can enjoy some more bassinet moments. I'll miss having him so close to me once he's finally gone.

I've been wanting for some time to summarize how things are going with having Snippet at work. He's been with me nearly two months now. In my mind long ago, I imagined a whole series of posts in which I would go into various detailed discussions about the experience, but I find that I am so exhausted each night that there is just no time or brain energy left in me. In short, having Snippet at work is bloody, bloody HARD. It's the most challenging thing I have ever done for such a sustained time. It is like running a marathon day after day, with no stops to douse yourself with gatorade, or have that awesome moment of relief and accomplishment while crossing the finish line. It's just constant motion, constant exertion, no breaks of any kind---all while trying to please my boss and be a good mom to Snippet. I don't want either of those two people to sense any frustration on my part, or to be able to gauge just how exhausted I am. So, while I am mentally and physically taxed to the limit, I am also constantly making the conscious decision to stay calm, stay pleasant, be an effective employee, be a happy mother. If it weren't for my morning coffee, I don't know how I would even find the courage to start each day again, with the full vivid knowledge of just how difficult it was the day before.

Each workday begins with hauling all my work stuff and baby crap into the office, as Snippet begins to awaken from his commute coma. I slap on my phone headset (which, I swear, is wearing a permanent half-moon dent across the top of my head) and start hauling out all my paperwork, notebooks, etc from the day before to determine where I left off. While the computer is booting up my glut of email, I sit Snippet on my lap and start the ballet that is bouncing him on one leg while balancing him with my left hand, and using my right hand to do every imaginable task: dialing vendors, typing email, shredding paper, sending faxes, taking notes while on telephone, signing for UPS packages, etc.

As the day unfolds, I shuffle Snippet from one contraption to another to keep him entertained. Since he can't sit up on his own yet, this involves strapping him into all sorts of things---swing, bouncy seat, boppy pillow, car seat, etc. His only free flopping time is in his gym on the floor, but he doesn't enjoy it all that much anymore since he can't figure out how to roll to reach toys out of his grasp. Instead, he lays in one spot and yells, stretching pathetically toward the hanging red bird on one side, or the dangling sun on the other. If I scoot him toward his toy of choice, he is happy for a moment, but then starts freaking out all over again, so his time spent free of restraints (either my arms or contraption clips) is pretty limited.

In between visits to his various activity centers, he also gets to camp out on my lap, either sitting and drooling, or standing and drooling. He whacks at my headset microphone, crumples up the papers on my desk, grabs at pens and staple removers, and contributes various chatty background noises while I'm on the phone with vendors. Every 2-3 hours I nurse him, and this is our special time together, when I don't answer the phone and don't do anything except stroke his cheek and rock him gently on my lap. But, once he finishes eating, we're back to the races with me changing his diapers (and, often, his clothes) while I'm on the phone. We do this dance together for eight long hours, until it's time to go home, which I signal to Snippet by loading him into his car seat and singing the theme from Mister Rogers neighborhood.

As exhausting as all of this is, I am incredibly grateful to be able to do it. I am hoping to keep it up until Snippet is at least one year old. I am also hopeful that once he can sit up and roll freely, he will find more enjoyment in his toys, making it a less stressful day for both of us. I know that nothing about this situation is ideal, but I do feel that it is our best option. On especially difficult days, I think to myself, "This is only temporary. It won't be this hard forever." But, in the next breath I think, "Oh, God......this is only temporary. I wish it could be this hard forever."

Invite

No, this isn't a post. It's a shameless invite to the private picture blog so you can see my first posted video footage of Snippet. Geez, go on!

Milestones of Many Kinds

Apparently, Snippet is going to be a short, fat man. At least, I had fun taunting Jake with this yesterday after our 4-month pediatrician checkup. Snippet is 15 pounds 4 ounces, which puts him in the 55th percentile---nice and average. But, he's only 24 inches tall, which puts him in the 20-something percentile---a bit on the short side. I was pointing the finger at Jake and his short genes, claiming he had already put our son at a disadvantage. It was great fun with Jake getting all defensive about how 5'7" isn't all that short, and even getting our (much taller) doctor to agree with him.

We checked off all the milestones except one: Rolling. Snippet is decidedly not into rolling. (Although, I tried to argue with the doc that this didn't matter since Snippet was hitting milestones that weren't even on the list like "Gags self with fist" or "Poops so loudly he scares himself.") We have been practicing rolling with him, pushing him halfway and letting him fall the rest of the way, and then making a big yelping deal about it. He doesn't see what we get so freaked out about. He just looks at us like, "What? Seriously, what?" The doctor agreed that he has more than enough physical strength to do it, noting that he has greater than expected neck and trunk stability. The doctor thinks he just has no motivation to do it, since he's seeing so much of the world and having lots of fun without shoving his face into the carpet. He noted that modern-day babies aren't forced onto their stomachs like they used to be, so they don't feel like they're missing anything, whereas earlier generation babies were on their stomachs all the time and couldn't see what was going on. They frequently started rolling really early, just out of curiosity. Our only tool now is the dreadful Tummy Time, which basically amounts to seeing how pissed off Snippet will get until he rolls over out of sheer rage. You can imagine how often we indulge in this form of parental torture. We're Tummy Time slackers. Jake is convinced Snippet will never be a roller, and hence a crawler, because we aren't forcing him into tummy time. We do it occasionally---a couple of times a week, for maybe five minutes. I'm even less motivated to do it now since our doctor said he's not worried at all about it, and that Snippet will come around to it once he feels like it. He just needs the right incentive.

Our doctor is so convinced that Snippet will soon be a roller that he actually lectured me about still keeping him in the bassinet at night. He feels it's time to transfer him to the crib because he'll soon be able to roll over and pull himself out. I intentionally neglected to mention that we're still swaddling him in the Miracle Blanket so there is no way for him to pull an arm out and heft himself over the edge of the bassinet. I was worried he would say there was some weirdo reason we weren't allowed to do that anymore, either. So, despite his insistence, I'm keeping Snippet in the bassinet for a while longer. I'm just not ready to have him in another room, yet. It's so comforting to know he's right next to me. The sound of his soft breathing is a lullaby for me in its own right. I love falling asleep to the steady sounds of his sleepy, contented rhythms. He has also rarely ever had to resort to actual crying to wake me up to nurse. I'm able to hear his little sounds of discontent right away, and get to him before he has to ratchet up to tears. This makes it nearly seamless for us both to get right back to sleep. I worry that once he's sleeping in the nursery I won't be able to hear him until he's actually wailing. Besides the practical reasons for avoiding this, I just hate to put that kind of stress on him. That said, he will soon be physically too big for the bassinet, as he only has a few inches to spare in length. He's also running out of room in width, and ends up most nights with his face smooshed against the breathable sides of it. I'm sure we'll transition him to the crib sometime in the next month, but I just need it to be on my terms. We'll get there......