a random sleep

Is an "I'm busy with a newborn" post boring? It is, I know it. Plus I imagine it has a slightly hysterical tone from sleep deprivation. And yet, that's what I've got for you today.

Ollie has had a stuffy nose for infinity days now (sometimes I lose perspective, with the babies), and hasn't allowed me to put him down to sleep since Saturday. Thus I have not had two free hands or any decent sleep since that time. If it looks like there might be a chance I could get him to sleep without being quite so personally involved I find myself daydreaming about my next three moves, usually involving personal hygiene. Then I get through half of whatever I want to do first and he's up and there goes personal hygiene and that explains a lot, doesn't it?

I feel a lot less caught up with the details this time around. Last time would think, she slept X amount last night and I ate this for dinner and changed her diaper at Y time and WHAT IS THE PATTERN TO IT ALL? This time I feel more like there is some sort of baby broadcast signal driving his actions and I can't receive those signals and I have no control anyway. I remember that the peak of crying is supposed to be 6 weeks and babies aren't very good at digesting until 12 weeks and there is no rhyme or reason to it beyond that. My main misconception last time was that the sleep would continually get better and then it wouldn't be something we would have to worry about. Which is true, but it happened over a two year time frame instead of the four to six months I had imagined and Dylan could still wake up crying at 4am on any given night even though she usually chooses not to. So: I have no hope of routinely getting decent sleep for at least a year and a half. I am appreciative that at least right now I have time to devote myself to napping and resting, assuming I can avoid Dylan and her mortal opposition to anyone in the house taking a nap. She is relatively tolerant of Ollie sleeping, but usually still notes that she wishes she could play with him. I guess for her "giving up the nap" means all of us, recent convert and all that. She's been doing great this week, though, in terms of the exorcism.

One pattern I have identified is that all those days I got to the gym were days that Aaron was home. Now he is working and Ollie can't go to the gym daycare until he's 6 weeks, so there goes personal fitness also.

I'm off to stop pushing my luck and go to bed since Ollie seems to actually be down for the moment.