Wednesday, November 24, 2010

"Thanks"

It’s been two months. Time hasn’t flied. And it has.

For the first few days after Olivia left, we couldn’t sleep. We were too excited, finally alone in our house with our baby. When Juliet slept, we watched her, sometimes in her room and sometimes on the video monitor. Or we sat in bed and talked about her, giggling like idiots, until it was time to feed her again. We could hardly believe that this was our family.

For the most part, Juliet had been sleeping for three hours stretches. Pretty good for a three-week old baby. I did the midnight-ish feeding, and Melissa did the middle of the night-ish one. We were tired all of the time, but we were living in that new parent daze. The sleepiness was a soft haze around what seemed like it had to be a dream.

I remember when the love train ran out of gas.

I had swaddled Juliet like a psych ward patient, sentenced to sleep, a term of not more than three hours I had figured. As I rocked Juliet in my arms, she screamed. She always fussed a little when she was tired. But then, inexplicably, she’d nod out. It would be sudden and sweet and easy.

But that night, Juliet didn’t nod out. She screamed louder than I had ever heard. She screamed for an hour as I shifted positions, cradling her in the crook of my elbow, holding her head to my chest, bouncing her gently between my knees.

Two hours passed. Juliet screamed.

I sat down on the big green pilates ball we kept in Juliet’s room. Melissa bounced her on it sometimes. Melissa claimed it settled her down and toned her abs. A win, win. I wondered if every baby had a pilates ball in their room. Probably every Jewish baby.

I bounced and Juliet’s screaming slowed to a whimper. I shushed and her eyes began to slowly fade. They closed for a moment and opened wide…and started the slow fade again, and again. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her eyelids finally sealed shut. I watched closely. They could have opened at any second. I’d been fooled before.

I slowed my bounce. My back and abs ached. But the war was finally over, and I’d won. It was an incredible feeling, transforming an apoplectic baby into a sleeping one. It still feels that way, every time.

I gently placed Juliet in her crib. She whimpered and raised her legs once and cooed. I hovered over her crib, watching her face in the dark, wondering whether the slits of her eyes were open or if the dark was playing tricks on me. I tiptoed to the door. As I reached for the handle, I heard the explosion. Juliet is a shit-fart gambler. She loses every time.
I wondered whether I could let her sleep in her shit. Whether it would weigh too heavily on my conscience for the rest of my life. Or, worse, if she’d hold it against me forever. I unswaddled her and unwrapped her diaper. When Juliet realized what was happening, she became hysterical. We were right back where we started.

I remembered that I had promised not to shake the baby. I alternated between the crook of my elbow and my chest and the ball and finally something worked. It’s a different thing every time. There’s no predicting Juliet’s preferences. She doesn’t have any yet.

I held my breath as I left the room. I crawled into bed. Every move I took towards sleep increased the odds that she’d wake up. Some nights, she cried the moment my head touched the pillow. Some nights, I laid in bed and couldn’t sleep because I opened my eyes every time I heard a sound on the baby monitor.

I looked at the ceiling in the dark and I asked Melissa if she was sleeping. She wasn’t. She never did. And the old city traffic and the air conditioner and the water heater all sounded like Juliet, crying for us for reasons none of us could figure out. We laid in bed, afraid to sleep, because a taste of honey was worse than none at all.

We watched the monitor, waiting for her little legs to start flopping up and down or for her little eyes to spring open. Then, we’d run out of our room, frantically warming bottles and changing poopy diapers while Juliet screamed for us to do it all faster. To do it all better. We were trying our best

As I gave Juliet her nighttime bottles, I wondered whether I wasn’t cut out for this. Whether I was more selfish than I ever could have imagined. Whether my perfect little daughter was the biggest mistake I’d ever made.

Then, one morning, as I was about to brush my teeth with my razor, I realized that it was six o’clock. Juliet had been asleep for five hours. I walked into her room. She was right where I left her, in the middle of her crib. Her head turned to one side, her eyes shut. I checked to see if she was breathing. I wasn’t sure. I gave her a little nudge, and her legs flopped as she sighed. Her eyes stay closed. She smiled in her sleep.

I walked back into my bedroom and Melissa was sleeping. Dreaming, probably for the first time in weeks. My girls are all sleeping, my house is quiet and full, and I am thankful.