When you are getting four hours of sleep a day (and not in a row) your view of the world tends to get a little blurred. That's what the first three months of Jack's life were like for me.
We had a tiny pack N play type bassinet downstairs in the living room where I would put him down to sleep after he'd passed out in my arms. Then I would run to try to make a dent in the never-ending pile of laundry or dishes. One day I discovered a trick to get him to sleep a little longer. Tivo had recorded this documentary about the Galapagos Islands. There was something hypnotic about the narrator's voice talking about sea turtles and blue-footed seabirds and ocean iguanas. Jack slept the longest when it was playing. So I played it over and over and over again.
I remember a time, sitting in the glider chair in Jack's room during a rare foggy morning at the end of the summer with Jack in my arms, dozing after I'd fed him. David was still sleeping in bed. I thought, this is one of those moments that I want to remember forever, because I am truly happy. Thank you God for this moment and for this child.
As he approached six weeks old, Jack got more cranky. He had those dinner-hour episodes of inconsolable crying. People who thought they had the magic touch with babies would come over and walk him around while he cried. And then they would give up and go home, Jack having beaten them down to the point where they were re-evaluating their purpose in life. It was really unbearable to hear him cry like that. While the crying episodes seemed to last for days at a time, really I think the longest it lasted was an hour or two. And that was on a rare occasion.
One time we went to a local chain store pharmacy. Jack decided he did not like it there and started to cry and cry and cry. I was waiting for a prescription for him (I forget what it was. Eye drops I think, because he had a plugged tear duct that was a little infected.) So we were stuck in the store waiting for the thing to be filled.
An older lady asked: "What is wrong with him."
I replied: "He has opinions."
She just stared at me.
When the prescription was finally ready 97 hours later, I started to wheel the stroller out of the store. I could swear Jack smirked at me as he stopped crying.
The pediatrician, who was a very even-handed, unflappable sort, told us, "Babies cry." If he's been changed, he's been fed, he has no gas, and you've already tried everything, well, there's not a lot to do.
When Jack was having those crying episodes, I discovered that only one thing had the power to soothe him. That was sitting with me on the glider, with him facing out towards the room, and me singing the Beatles' "Hey Jude" (only I sang Hey Dude instead of Hey Jude). He would immediately stop crying. I tried other songs too. They did not work. I began to suspect his favorite Beatle was Paul.
As my maternity leave wore on I started to realize that I was deluding myself by thinking I could hire a mother's helper-type to take care of Jack when I went back to my job. You see, even though David telecommutes all the time and I do it a lot of the time, we both still worked full time, with lots of time on the phone. And Jack was a very active boy who needed undivided attention when he was awake.
I'd spent such a long long time and gone through so much pain to get him into my life that it was breaking my heart to think of sending him away to daycare -- away from me for many long hours every day. Jack was the light of our lives. He made it all worth it.
But I made too much money to quit my job and too little money for a nanny. I was screwed.
One day at the breastfeeding support group I heard another mom talking about a particular daycare. It was less than a mile from our house, it had web-cams (so you could look at your little sweetie during the day from your computer), and the program sounded like the kind of place I would want my boy to be. (It was a Montessori preschool with an infant program.)
When my mom came to visit we took a tour of it. Even though I did no comparison shopping, I knew this was the place for us. The caregiver to infant ratio was 1 to 3, and they all loved loved loved the babies. It just felt really right.
Nonetheless, I cried when I dropped Jack off there for the first time. And for the second time. And for the whole first week. I became a clock watcher at work, waiting for the earliest possible moment when I could make a break for the door and go get my boy and cover him in kisses. Twelve weeks of maternity leave was not nearly enough. Not nearly. And I started to get a little angry about that.
