3 Weeks Old Already

This week has been full of ups and downs. We've gotten lots of sleep and hardly any sleep. Eric has had days where he will cry and be awake half the day and days where he can't get enough sleep. He has had nights where he is wide awake and nights where he's slept for 4 1/2 hours straight. Through all of this I have discovered something. As a behavior therapist I have taught families that children have certain behaviors for certain reasons. However, all of these teachings that I have given go completely out the window when it comes to a newborn. Nine times out of ten there is no rhyme or reason for why newborns get so upset and worked up. A lot of the times it looks like Eric is constipated but his bowel movements are fairly regular. He is also the gasiest kid I know. He will cry for hours and last night I discovered that while Daddy Eric sits and tries to figure out why the baby is so upset (I've been told: we're overfeeding him, you didn't burp him enough, etc etc) there is rarely a solution. I've discovered that the solution really is that he just needs to be comforted. This comes back to my career as a behavior therapist. I've taught families that if you reinforce a negative behavior the behavior will continue. Ok so apply this to a newborn. When he gets really upset I go in and I pick him up and hold him and rock him and sing to him etc etc. Sometimes this will go on for hours. Now the behavior therapist in me says this is a bad idea because everytime he cries I "reinforce" it by giving him what he wants which is a dose of mom. However, how do you justify that comforting him is a bad idea when he is only 3 weeks old??? So for now I need to throw all my behavior therapies out the window and take things one day at a time. I need to do what I need to do to survive the night and keep this baby happy. If I have to rock him, sing to him, cuddle him, hold him in several different positions and do whatever it takes to make him happy, I will do it!! I just can't wait until we get our glider is in this week so I can rock him in a glider because my knees and back are taking a beating!!

Speaking of the glider... In February I ordered a glider from Target.com. I used gift cards to buy it so I was adament about getting one from Target. However, this glider has been on backorder and was supposed to come in anytime around or before April 8th. So I patiently waited for this glider. It was reasonably priced and Target's shipping was so expensive that I wasn't willing to fork out extra money on a more expensive glider just to get one quicker. So I waited and waited and then yesterday I received an email from Target. The glider was now not going to be in until on or after May 4th. I lost it. So we went to Target in Westborough to see what they had in the store but there was no display that showed any signs of them having a glider in the store. So we went to Target in Millbury. We were cutting it close because the baby needed to eat soon and I didn't have any bottles with me so I was totally stressed out. We talked to the guy at Target and they only had two models of gliders and they did not match our current furniture. At this point I could care less if they matched anything, I just wanted a glider. So I was not being so nice to Daddy Eric and telling him that we need to just get a glider, it does not matter anymore what color it is. In the meantime the baby is crying so we're both yelling at Daddy Eric and causing a scene. So it turns out after all of this they didn't even have the glider in the store. Poor Eric took a beating for nothing. We laughed about how out of control I got in the store. Sleep deprivation was not working kindly with me that day. Needless to say I went home and went back online and happened to find a glider on Target.com that was on clearance and cheaper than the original glider. Thank goodness! The even better news is that it is being shipped to us on Monday so it'll be here sometime next week.

Tuesday was one of the hardest days this week for me. I packed up the family and we headed down to Randolph where I dropped off all of my stuff that belonged to the May and picked up my last paycheck. My reign at the May as a Behavior Therapist is now over as of now. I dreaded Tuesday because I'm so incredibly sad. I have been out of college for almost 6 years now and it took me a long time to settle into a job. It took me even a long time to settle on the May. I left the company twice and they thankfully not only took me back twice but eventually promoted me. I had consistantly been working at the May for a year and a half and now it's over and it wasn't my choice. It's a tough blow because now I don't know what I'm going to do or where I'll end up. My future as far as my career goes is very up in the air right now and that's tough to think about so I just try not to worry too much about it and focus on the right now.

Eric has been out job searching union jobs this week. Things looked much more promising this week than they have in a long time so keep your fingers crossed that he finds something soon!

And now for some pictures:

The baby fascinated by looking at Daddy


Sleepin'


Cousin Eli finally got to visit. He was so excited! He thought the baby is very cute. My favorite thing he said was that the baby has an extra "thumbkin". That was very cute.