« The Heart Doctor | Main | One Month, One Week, One Day »
August 14, 2005
Monthly Newsletter: Month One
Dear Dashiell,
Today you are one month old. To celebrate you decided that starting Saturday evening, you'd give up on sleeping. I think you napped a little during the night, but not much, and you insisted that I hold you all the time. I managed to doze a little, but really, I'd prefer if your insomnia didn't include me. Right now it's Sunday night around midnight and you've still not slept all day other than periodic snoozing in either PreZ or my arms. Every time we try and put you down, it seems as though a little internal alarm goes off that wakes you up. Last night it was the mama alarm, because every time I got you to sleep and would hand you off to your dad to go do something in another room, you'd wake up. Your dad felt a bit slighted over that, so you better make it up to him at some point... though, sometimes you'll refuse to nurse, yet you'll happily suck on his finger for ages, so I guess that makes us even.
I am so going to pay you back for this sleep deprivation when you become a teenager who likes to sleep in until the afternoon.
This first month has been an interesting and exhausting experience. I'm feeling more comfortable and confident about dealing with you, though I'm still not entirely sure what to do with you when you're awake. Lately you insist on being held most of the time, and we still haven't completely gotten the hang of using the sling, which would certainly help somewhat.
This first month has also had its share of worrisome periods, starting at 2.5 days old when we took you to the pediatrician's office and got told to go get you checked out for hypothyroidism at the hospital, amongst doom and gloom predictions about your frontal fontanelle and the size of your head. We had to watch you get stuck with needles, and my heart felt like it was being squeezed to pieces. You have no idea how much I wish I could have traded places with you to save you that agony. Then earlier this week the doctor observed a heart murmur, and now we'll be visiting a cardiologist regularly until the issue is resolved, either by itself or with the aid of medication or surgery. You've given us quite a scare with this, little Dash.
You've also accrued several nicknames during this month. Early on I dubbed you Sir Flail-a-Lot because of your tendency to open your mouth, and shake your head from left to right across my nipple as I try to get you to latch on, this is usually accompanied by the flailing of your arms too. I'll have you know that my nipples resent this treatment. One day you will have to explain this behaviour to me, because I know you're hungry, so why you do this is a mystery. You definitely got the ornery and stubborn genes from your parents, that's for sure.
There have been a few times where I've nicknamed you Elvis, because I thought you would surely hurt yourself from the straining you do to fill your diaper. The accompanying groans and grunts are worthy of a career in the porn industry though, but it's not one that your dad and I endorse.
Finally, we often call you Lance, after Lance Armstrong. If you're not impersonating Elvis, your dad and I are sure that you have a bright future in cycling because of the way you cycle and push your legs in the air when filling your diaper. At the rate you're going, we can enroll you for your first Tour de France in a couple of years... you know, when you actually have control over your limbs.
You're already growing like a weed... since your birth you've put on about a pound and a half, and while you're still so small, it's already becoming hard to remember that you were so much smaller than you are now. However, I'm proud of the little buddha belly that you're cultivating. You have these long spidery little fingers that I swear have doubled in length since your birth.
So far your dad and I still haven't figured out who you look like. I think I need to get baby pictures of myself and my brothers scanned and emailed to compare... I think you might look somewhat like your uncles as a baby. But then your nanna Irene thinks that you look like your grandfather Preston's baby pictures. So it's still anybody's guess really. What we do know is that you're cute as hell, and we spend lots of time looking at you and going "he's so cute!" to each other. It's a good thing that you're so cute, it makes the sleep deprivation and the fussing more bearable.
I can tell that you can't wait to get a bit older, because you love to sit upright and view the world. I have no idea how much of it you see with your newborn 8-12 inch range of vision, but why let that stop you, right? And why also let the fact that you can't hold your own head up hold you back, you can get one of your parents to do it and make it so that they can't do anything other than entertain you. Our apartment looks like a disaster area, but by golly you're entertained.
Other than that, I can't believe that a month has gone by so fast. At times it feels like things have always been this way, and at others it's just flown past at an insane pace. Anyway, I hope you've had a good first month kiddo.
Love,
Mama
Posted on 11:59 PM to: Dashiell , Newsletter