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08/24/2007: "Week's End"
Well, today is Friday and thank God for it. It's been a long week; longer than I could imagine. I've managed not to cry this morning, but it's not even 8 am yet, so there's time.
Monday was the worst. I cried when I got up. I cried as I fed Dessa her breakfast. I cried in the car on the way to my Mom's. I cried handing her over and getting in the car. I lost it completely when the radio played "In My Daughter's Eyes" (I had to take Mom's car to work because she doesn't have a car seat base installed yet so she needed my car. Mom listens to country music, hence the unfortunate timing of the song on the radio). I was a wreck all morning and then I called Mom to see how the baby was doing and in another tremendous bit of unfortunate timing, of course she was having her mid-morning screaming meltdown just as I phoned. So guess what I did.
You got it. I cried.
Mom called me back 5 minutes later and Dess was fast asleep so I was mollified, but I'm here to tell you it was a hard day.
Tuesday was a little better. Oh I cried, make no mistake. I cried at home, I cried in the car, I cried at Mom's... but I didn't cry at work. Progress.
On Wednesday I cried at home and at Mom's, but nowhere else. Except when I got home, of course I cried because... I've cried every afternoon at home, to be honest. Not a lot, not extensively, but... yeah.
Yesterday I barely cried as I left the house, so I really feel like I'm adjusting to this whole thing. And today I haven't cried at all. Of course, it's Friday so I know I have the weekend to look forward to. Talk to me Monday morning. I may be part of the tissue brigade again.
The upside of the week is that Dess has slept very well at night, though she's fought like a tiger to get there at times. Things started out promisingly, because we'd had a very busy weekend. Last Friday we'd gone to Berkeley for tattoos, which took the vast majority of the day. Dessa was a champ hanging out at the tattoo place but there was a lot of stimulation and then we'd gone to Mom's for a knit night. She was already tired when on Saturday my mother-in-law and brothers-in-law were over to see her and I made dinner. More stimulation for her but she actually let us all eat dinner at the same time! She sat in her little swing and just looked around during dinner happily. A very good girl! On Sunday we'd had a big group of folks over for dinner and again Dessa was just an angel but it was loud and warm and she was really overstimulated so she slept hard.
Then Monday morning I changed her schedule all around so I could go to work. Generally I let her wake up on her own time and eat when she wants to, but unfortunately we've had to change that. She has to go on a bit of a schedule now, which I worried about because I'm not a huge fan of scheduled eating for little babies. It's a personal philosophy that worked over the summer and that I liked. But, circumstances change, so we had to change too.
She'd slept all through the night easily and I actually had to wake her up at 6:30 to eat before we headed to Mom's. It's been like that all week. Dessa seems to have put herself on a schedule that works for her. I kick it off by getting her up at 6:30, she eats, goes to Mom's and sleeps some more. She eats around 10:30 and then again around 2:30 and I pick her up by 3:30. We go home and play and she eats again around 5:30 or so, and then for the last time at 9:15 when she conks out for the night. Her only problem this week has been that she doesn't want to nap between the time I pick her up and the time that she goes to bed for the night, which is a long stretch and has resulted in a bit of hysteria around 7 pm each night. We're working on it.
All in all, we're doing OK in these parts. We're adjusting. I'll never like having to leave her, but I'm surviving. I knew this would be harder on me than on Dess, and of course it is.
Oh there's one other thing that started this week. Dessa laughed for the first time last evening with me. I found a ticklish spot and she just went goofy. She has this fantastic laugh that just bubbles out of her and I've been trying to make her laugh constantly now. I guess if my baby starts laughing the same week I have to go back to work, she's not suffering. That's actually comforting.
I'll still never really like it though. When's Thanksgiving break again?
Replies: 1 Comment - Go read it!
on Friday, August 24th, Jeannie said
Baby laughs are the absolute best!!!!
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