His Turn Will Come.

To play or to sleep.  That is the infernal question.  As of late my little guy Austin, who is now 3 weeks old has took it upon himself to insure that neither of his parents are allowed to sleep at night.  The times where it looks as tho he has passed out into a formula induced coma,  we hike him upstairs in his laundry basket/bed and place him in his room hoping to get a few hours sleep before the next feeding.  Alas that chance never comes.  Seems that he has a security system that notifies him the moment our breathing starts to show signs that we may be falling asleep.  His fussiness has no end in sight unless you plan on staying awake, then he sleeps quite well.  ARG!!!!

  I am going to answer the question that is budding in the back of your mind.  Yes we use a laundry basket as his bed for now.  It makes carrying Austin up and down the stairs seamless, aside from the slight jostling from us ascending or descending the stairs. Don't get me wrong, we have a nice expensive crib in his room and a playpen downstairs in the living room.  We simply place the laundry basket inside the playpen and on the floor.  Austin doesn't mind it one bit, If anything he sleeps better in the laundry basket than anywhere else.

  With just myself and fussy gussy in the living room at 1 or 4 AM, I often contemplate the idea of turning on my Xbox 360.  That moment lasts about 5 minutes.  The 5 minutes it takes for me to dig out my wireless headphones and controller, then setup the transmitter for the headphones and get the computer ready to record some game-play.  Then Austin figures out what I am trying to accomplish and starts his crying engine.

  Don't get me wrong.  I know that these hellish nights will end soon enough.  Been there, done that, my daughter Erika puked on the t-shirts.  But what your memories tell you of those nights were like in the past for some horrifying reason never coincide with the actual events.  Sadly, you do not become aware how much your memory has buffered those events until it has become too late. You no longer have time to prepare mentally or to wrap your head around the fact that 5 hours of sleep in a row is nothing but a long lost friend who took it upon themselves to block your phone number and emails.

Erika 2 days old

The most frustrating part of this whole situation is the low down dirty lies.  Everyone, including our doctor told us that the second child would be completely different from the first one.  Night and day they said.  Erika was 10 days over due.  Ditto for Austin, 10 days over due.  Erika had colic for the first 2 months.  We are on our first month of colic so far with Austin.  Austin pretty well looks exactly like Erika did at that age, except for the hair.  Austin has way more hair.  I can only surmise that in today's society with all our technology and science, that no one has a clue.  They can only make guesses in hopes that they luck out and tell you "SEE!", or they tell you "WHOOPSY!  Didn't see that coming" in a mocking voice when it does work out.

Austin 1 day old

I can only hope that soon these sleepless nights and restless days will be behind us.  We will look back 25 to 35 years from now when our daughter or son are going through hopefully the very same torment and I will be able to give them these words of wisdom;"HA HA!"