An Infectious Posting

Wonderful news. Atticus has started sleeping 5 hours during the night. Whew! We hope he keeps it up.

But he has been fussy for the past few days, & Robby & I chocked it up to bad behavior. How can a 2-month-old acquire bad behavior? Well, I figured that he learned that crying loudly = getting picked up, so he kept fussing so that we wouldn't put him down. Babies are smarter than we think they are!

With all that crying, Atticus started getting mucus in his eyes, & the whites of eyes were turning pink. Something wasn't right. Was this caused by too much crying or something else?

This time, we were wrong. He wasn't exhibiting bad behavior. I took him to the pediatrician yesterday. The diagnosis: PINK EYE. CONJUNCTIVITIS.

Poor guy. I feel guilty for faulting his behavior when it was merely a symptom of his health problem. Bad mom.

Since I started giving him the eye drops, he has been much happier. He smiled all night before going to bed. His favorite spot is the changing table, where he stares and smiles at the butterfly mobile that hangs from the ceiling. He'll smile even when he wants to cry. Smiling toothless babies are adorable!

Last night, he slept for SEVEN hours! We know that this habit won't last, but we're going to savor ever extra hour of sleep that he gives us.

I'm already starting to miss his former infant self. Babies develop so rapidly. I'll be sad when he loses the chubbiness in his little fingers, his taut cheeks, and toothless grin.

So much work!

Taking care of a baby is so much work!

Robby & I have been exhausted from taking care of Atticus, who isn't even a high-maintenance baby. He's actually a pretty normal baby. His needs are easily interpreted. When he cries, he is either gassy, hungry, or tired. He occasionally smiles, which will melt anyone's heart. Thank goodness he isn't colicky. He never spits up milk. But we are exhausted from his sleep schedule, which is still pretty normal. He sleeps 3-5 hours at a time.

For the last two days, he has been inconsolable. He burped & spit up more than usual & would cry each time we tried to put him down to sleep. Robby found out on the Internet that his green, foamy poop was an indication of foremilk-hindmilk imbalance. Now that we've figured that out, we've changed his feeding style. It's worked so far today. Who knows? We haven't reached his nightly fussy period yet (6-11pm).

It has been only two months and we don't remember a time when we had energy. Last night, Robby said, "When is our life going to get back to normal?" I replied, "This IS normal!" He meant pre-baby normal, but we're never going to get back pre-baby normal.

The boy is cute, though. Especially when he is lying on the changing table smiling at the butterfly mobile hanging on the ceiling. Or when he emit gurgling and cooing noises. Or when he wakes up in the morning and smiles a toothless smile at us. Or when he stretches his arms & legs after being swaddled all night. Or when he tucks his head into my neck and curls up against my chest after a full feeding.