The Honeymoon Is Over

For about the first 64 hours after Hava's birth, we were able to keep alive our secret fantasy that baby #2 was going to be a different, easier experience. Hava indulged us -- she appeared to be calm, quiet and easy-going -- and we found ourselves thinking "hey, we paid our dues on baby #1, so it's only right that we get one of those easy, non-crying, "oh she's been sleeping through the night since she was six weeks old" babies.

That was the first 64 hours. But starting on Thursday night, Hava (with some help from Jonah and Ella) got to work throwing cold water on our fantasies. (Actually, it would be a little more accurate to say that she took a great big baby poop all over our fantasies... but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Thursday night began with a slightly more agitated baby, who appeared to have no interest in sleep and a nearly insatiable appetite for nursing. Several hours in, Hava and Jonah started a routine where Hava would cry and agitate for more nursing, then as soon as she was settled, Jonah would cry out from his room and I'd stagger out of bed and go to calm him.

(I should digress for a minute: recently Jonah has started this thing where he stays laying down in his crib and cries softly until someone comes in his room, at which point he stops crying and goes back to sleep without the slightest bit of encouragement -- apparently he just wants to know that we're still around and thinking about him. This has been going on few a week or two, and I don't really have the heart to do anything other than indulge it given all the changes happening in Jonah's world at the moment.)

Anyway, after a few rounds of the Hava-Jonah chorus, we decided enough was enough and next time Jonah cried we weren't going to get him. After all, he calmed in seconds and clearly didn't need us, right? He had different plans, and kept it up for 20 minutes, at which point I relented and went in to see what was amiss.

Scene: Jonah's bedroom. Matt enters from stage left, hair and clothes askew from futile attempts at sleep. Jonah is sitting in his crib, legs dangling between the bars, looking wide awake.
"Jonah, it's two in the morning. It's time for sleeping."
"Find an alligator?" (I have no idea why he says this. We've never discussed alligators before. And certainly not at 2 in the morning.)
"Um, Jonah, can we look for the alligator in the morning?"
"OK."
Jonah promptly flops down on his mattress and goes back to sleep.

I returned to the bedroom and had barely closed my eyes when Ruth Ann woke me. "Hava pooped." Now that was an understatement. You non-parents probably want to stop reading now, but for the rest of you, let me tell you: if my first baby pooped like that, I never would have had a second. After cleaning the baby, the onesie the baby wore, the pants that were outside the onesie, the blanket wrapped around the onesie and pants, the towels that we grabbed to try to contain the whole mess, and miscellaneous other walls and surfaces that suffered collateral damage, we about as far from sleep as you can get.

We all climbed back in bed and just barely drifted off when Ella woke us with the unmistakable heaving sounds of a dog throwing up on the bedroom carpet. Like my third grade math teacher liked to say, "some days you get the elevator..."

Sometime around 4:30 a.m., after further antics and incessant nursing, Ruth Ann abandoned ship and headed to the living room couch, muttering something about her nipples falling off. Hava gave me a look and began to work into a cry. But then, perhaps sensing that she ought not push things too far on her second night home, she relented and let me get her in a decent swaddle and gently shush her to sleep. I got us both in bed, snuggled her against my chest, and we both drifted off for a merciful, maybe even blissful, three hour sleep.

All's well that ends well, or so I'm told. Seems like that applies here.