Thursday!

Friday! Friday! Wait - not Friday yet? Only Thursday?!?
I woke up this morning in a state of disorientation, with no idea where I was, what day it was, and, not least of which, what time it was (I was, in fact, home, it was Thursday, and it was 7 AM). Delaney had woken up around 4, Jen had gotten up and taken care of everything, and I had slept right through it. That's never happened before (to my knowledge - granted if it did happen I wouldn't really know about it unless Jen decided to tell me) so the exhaustion must be having its effect.

Delaney got about 6 hours of sleep last night, combined with a couple catnaps throughout the day, for a grand total of nowhere near where she needs to be. At this point we're kind of giving up - even with the bags under her eyes she seems to be happy and interactive so the solution may have to be just waiting it out.

We've had some success (this being a relative term) with a new comforting technique Jen picked up. We swaddle Delaney up completely, pop a pacifier in her mouth, then hold her on her side. When she starts fidgeting to keep herself awake I hold on to her as tight as I can so she can't flail about. After a few little fits she'll doze off into a light sleep, occasionally waking up to fuss a bit before falling back asleep. So far I haven't been able to achieve the deep sleep like Jen is able to do but at least I can get her eyes closed. Baby steps!

In positive developments, Delaney is growing even more accustomed to bathtime. Last night she sat contentedly while we washed her up, offering only a shiver here and there in complaint. Jen tried a new technique for washing her hair (wetting and shampooing whilst D sat upright, then rinsing it out whilst holding her on her back) which worked like a charm - no tears at all. The less she's on her back the happier she is, and having Daddy make faces and sing to her while Mommy did the rinsing help distract her for the mere minute or two we needed to get the job done.


"These aren't the cheeseburgers you're looking for ..." Daddy-o stop laughing during my Obi-Wan Kenobi impression! What do you mean there's a monkey on my head? No, I am NOT a jawa! Daddy-o!!!

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So last night we watched Fired Up!, which might surprise you since it's likely on everyone's Movies I Bet Keath Won't Want To Watch List.

The trailer intrigued me enough to check it out - the key to these movies is not the plot, which will adhere rigidly to genre formula, but how well it flows and spins the formula into, ideally, something fresh. This one does a pretty good job (Ebert, however, does not agree with me on this). It progresses through the necessary scenes organically and unforced, has better than average dialogue, and the actors were enjoyable. Several jokes were pretty cheap but made us laugh anyway.

It was less crude overall than I expected, playing less American Pie and more Jason Lee style wisecracks. Actor Eric Christian Olsen effortlessly deadpans double entendres and backchat, turning in perhaps the best performance of the movie. Nicholas D'Agosto's earnestness keeps on the right side of plausible authenticity, a key component to the film's success. A nice add on was Margo Harshman's character Sylvia, who's comments like "I wanna cut the blonde one!" were dependably funny.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to recommend it unless you were specifically looking for this type of movie. If you are, then this is a great entry in the genre, if not then your movie watching time is more profitably spent elsewhere.


I also watched some Family Guy last night. I'm addicted to seeing Stewie do cute baby things.


Lastly, a day or so ago I finished Home Game by Michael Lewis, an enjoyable and fast read. It read so fast, in fact, that I was convinced I had overpaid for it because it felt around 80 pages (it's actually a little shy of 200). It also made me laugh out loud several times, something books rarely do. Actually that's something many things rarely do - I am just not a laugh out loud person I guess. But oh how I love funny things!

I do laugh out loud a lot more these days, however. I blame the exhaustion.

Anyway, Home Game is a collection of diary entries and thoughts Lewis compiled after the births of his three kids. I suppose one day this blog will serve the same purpose for Delaney - she can read back and, in between exhaustive reportage on her sleep schedule and bathtime acclimation, get a picture of what day to day activity was like.

Wednesday!

And I'm not ready!
Another night of next to no sleep (around 3 hours) to be followed by another day of stressful work. I've found that, paradoxically, it's almost better to get no sleep. To go from a good night's sleep to something like last night is incredibly painful. To go from a night of 4 hours sleep to one of 3 hours sleep is no big deal - you can't really feel any worse after the first night anyway so who cares what the second night is like.

There's little to do at 2 AM besides hoping against experience she'll go to sleep and swearing you'll get even with every dirty filthy liar who told you raising an infant "isn't that bad." Here's the truth: it is. And if I ever join the conspiracy and tell you otherwise you have permission to kick me in the shin. Twice.

She clearly wants to sleep but she won't let herself. Why not? She must have a plan! Yes, it makes sense! Those cunning eyes (now clearly brown by the way), that knowing smirk (she's part-Bruce Willis), those little baby giggles which have recently taken on a decidedly devious edge. Clearly she's up to something.

I start trying to figure out what her scheme is. I theorize she is reincarnated from a large family, a previous Jon and Kate plus 8 arrangement. She's learned from her previous experience and now knows: the secret is to be an only child. Then there's no dividing of parental attention, no dividing of grandparental attention either, she can get the pink bike AND the Barbie Dream House for Christmas, and she gets to lick the spoon after making chocolate chip cookies every time. So the key is to make sure Mommy and Daddy never ever ever have another baby as long as they live (which better be at least until her 16th birthday because Daddy already promised her a car if she cooperated with the ultrasound and yes she totally remembers!). With shrewd, calculating precision she spots our weakness and attacks without mercy. Sure she's sacrificing sleep herself, but the end result? All me, all the time! Who wouldn't want that?

I had quite convinced myself of the theory's validity when Jen mercifully took over and let me sleep a few hours. Instead of counting sheep, I count doctors jumping over examining tables bleating "She'll outgrow it! She'll outgrow it!" I pelt them with vasectomy literature until they realize I'll be taking action and won't be funding their second vacation home. They weep. Life's cruel.

It's not all bad though - I do love my little girl like life itself. And giving her a Heidi Klum double cheek smooch does temporarily stop the constant stinging in my eyes. She's absolutely adorable, even when she's crying and jutting out that bottom lip in a superhuman pout. And if I do lose my temper at 3 AM when she's waking herself back up for the 8th time in an hour rather than letting herself get the sleep she desperately needs, well, at least it keeps me from being deluded about achieving equanimity.

But I do now think in a previous life I must have been very unsympathetic to people who didn't get enough sleep. Karma is hell.

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Since we're caught up with Project Runway, Jen and I have been looking for a new show to watch. We first tried Hell's Kitchen but the action was a little too intense and the contestants a lot too manipulative nogoodniks.

We also tried The Next Food Network Star, which was okay but not really engaging in terms of contestants or judges. I found myself rooting for Michael but after a couple episodes Jen and I realized a fundamental fact - judging food does not translate well to television. With Project Runway we can see 95% of the final product (the 5% being things like stitches and other items too detailed for the camera to be bothered about). Food is 95% taste, and if you can't taste it, well, what's the point of tuning in for 5% of the experience? "I really like how he did the parsley - it's much better on the left side of the plate than how that girl did it on the right." These are conversations I don't care about having.

I suppose you could tune in and see how awkward they are doing pseudo commercials and guesting on Rachael Ray, but truthfully I'm getting to the age where that holds little appeal.

Not to be defeated, last night we tried Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Better still he was in Puerto Rico, eating lots of pork, which made my mouth water and my chicken fajitas from Chili's seem very drab and unsatisfying.

For the better part of my 32 years I've been a timid eater. Only recently have I realized food preferences are largely psychological and made myself eat things I thought I didn't like only to find generally they're not so bad after all. Still, I hold enough reservations to marvel at Zimmern, who can, and will, eat literally everything that is edible. And apparently has no stomach aches afterwards. The man is a marvel.

In a fit of sudden inspiration, I loaded up my Chili's chicken fajita with everything there - peppers, onions, cheese, and pico de gallo. It was a combination of mush and poorly mixed flavors. No wonder Zimmern always chooses the local places.

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Even though we're halfway through it, there's still a big week ahead. Unfortunately D's Sleep Deprivation Challenge 2009 is making my plans of trying out some meditation classes impossible - it's got to be all hands on deck for as much as possible or else the whole ship will go down faster than a guy with poor reflexes being put in charge of the "profanity beep" button on Hell's Kitchen. But we do have both a landscaper and a hardwood flooring guy coming out Friday for estimates on tasks of home improvement. And then there's Saturday, glorious Saturday, when I'm home all day and can sleep whenever she sleeps. Because she has to sleep sometime, right? Right?!?

Monday!

Daddy-o too busy to blog today? You mean I put on this dress for nothing?

Delaney & The Fateful Doctor's Visit

Daddy-o, now that I have my beautiful tropical dress, can we go to Hawaii?
Tomorrow being a holiday, I get Friday off from work, which was a good thing as Delaney showed little interest in sleeping last night. I was up with her from 3 AM on, excepting a 45 minute catnap around 6. The situation reaching states of miserableness unrivaled in infant rearing history (this assessment being relative to our experience thus far, which is composed of 7 whole weeks of mostly trouble free activity), we decided expert consul was needed and I made a doctor's appointment for this morning.

The doctor, naturally, was unconcerned. Delaney is in perfect health and he didn't suspect any lurking illness or untreated condition. His advice was simple: Give her formula.

Turns out one bottle of breastmilk (actually, one tablespoon of breastmilk) a day gives the baby the full benefit. That was quite an astonishing fact - it's very potent stuff we knew, but we didn't know it was as potent-ific as all that!

The doctor theorized our lack of sleep was causing the breastmilk to be weaker, which in turn was not knocking Delaney out like it should, which lead to less sleep, so on and so forth. He also told us she was 10 lbs, 10.5 oz. Growing girl!


Coming soon, Daddy-o!
Luckily Delaney was hungry leaving the doctor's office so we whipped out our emergency bottle of formula we carry everywhere (a new parent's state of constant preparation make boy scouts look like absent-minded slackers). She downed most of it and proceeded to sleep 2 hours. Then she woke up for about 45 minutes, had another bottle, and is passing 2 hours of sleep again as I type.

Needless to say we are thus far thrilled with both the results and the ease of the solution.


The baby's down! That means Daddy will try to be productive! I'll put a stop to that! Emergency nap on your To Do items!


So Wednesday I was chatting with Sean and Ceci and they said Bjork's label is hitting up blogs for press about her new live album. Historically my views on Bjork ranged from meh to bleh, depending (a) on my mood and (b) how much my friends were playing The Sugarcubes. Since then I've been loath to try any of her solo stuff, but that night I realized it wasn't really fair to dismiss Bjork just because I didn't like her when I was in college. I'm sure there are bands I didn't like in college that I like now (though I can't think of any offhand) and there are bands I liked in college I don't like now (REM for example, who I now realize were at their best when they sounded like a competent Smiths cover band).

So, back to Bjork: in the spirit of equanimity, yesterday morning I downloaded Volta to check it out (Note: the new album Voltaic is a live album and, despite Slash's opinion live albums are the best place to start, I generally think live albums are simply a Greatest Hits collection with poorer quality so I skipped to the most recent studio album). And it's kinda, well, maybe not awesome, but it's actually quite good. It reminds me of David Bowie's Earthling album. Electro-beats, lyrics that make, at best, minimal sense, just plain weirdness. I'd listen to it. In fact, I am.


All this to say Volta was sufficiently inspiring for me to take some new albums on faith, so I reactivated my eMusic subscription, albeit at a much reduced rate. For $20 I'll be able to download roughly a new album each week, a good opportunity for me to download items I'd otherwise not bother with. My first choice: Asobi Seksu's "Hush." Check back next Friday when I offer my thoughts! Provided I remember to, of course.

The Grand Sleep Development Project

Rain, rain, and more rain in Tampa. Brief periods of non-rain, followed by periods of rain intent on making up for lost time.

We continue trying to get Delaney to sleep. Each day gains an additional 30 minutes, so we're slowly getting her to what is the general minimum amount her age group should be getting.

La De Dah

La De Dah, La De Dah - Is it time for Mythbusters yet?

Not much sleep last night so not much of a blog post.

Congrats to Amy and Birc on their engagement!

Sleepy D

Doesn't Mommy's hair look good!

Saturday was a big day - all three of us went to get Jen's hair done. Delaney was a little angel through the whole thing, sleeping the first half then after a bottle and diaper change she happily played with Daddy-o the rest of the appointment.


Saturday night we watched Yes Man, which was better than I expected. I laughed out loud several times, which is unusual for me and a Jim Carey movie.

Sunday, curious about Delaney's increased fussiness the past few days, Jen did some online research and realized (a) newborn's fussiness peaks at week 6 and (b) Delaney is a textbook case of an over tired baby. As a result, Jen and I are studying up and getting D on a proper sleep program so she can catch up on all the hours she's been missing.

We started yesterday after lunch - she slept on and off for most of the afternoon then did both a 5 hour stretch and a 4 hour stretch at night (with a bottle and diaper change in between). This morning she was bright and alert - when I said good morning to her she looked me straight in the eye (this hasn't happened in weeks!), smiled once (awww!), smiled again (that's so cute!), smiled a third time (woah! this is really working!) and giggled! A giggle! I've NEVER gotten a giggle!

So, needless to say, thus far we're thrilled with the results. Nights are easy since she sleeps during that time anyway - the big test is if we can get her to sleep during the day, which she's less than inclined to do. The good thing is sleep begets sleep so once we get the ball rolling Nature should do the rest.