A Mother’s Technique
Posted: August 29th, 2008 | Author: jw | Filed under: Baby | Tags: fatherhood | No Comments »
Mother and Daughter
Last Wednesday was a mildly momentous day. It was my first stay-at-home-papa day. The night before we found out Georgia and Izzy, (beautiful daughters of Rebecca, our friend and daycare provider) were ill with a slight flu. We decided to try to avoid that, and pulled Maeva out of daycare for the day. It was quickly decided that, rather than call in a last minute babysitter (hello Grandma Becky!) I would stay home with Maeva. Work in Saint Paul is slow right now. It would work out.
I decided to keep track of the day’s events. Here is what happened…
4:10AM Maeva is squawking on the baby monitor. Meg just fed her, but she’s up again. This is a first. Normally she never wakes up more than a time or two per night. Meg sorties out to see what’s what. Baby goes back down. Mother returns to bed.
4:32AM Incredibly, she wakes again. I go in to see what’s up. She flashes me a huge smile, like she hasn’t seen me in a month. She’s wide awake. We chat for a moment and I can’t help but admire her. She must be hungry. I call Meg in for reinforcements. Meg decides to bring her into our bed, where she feeds her and we all fall asleep again cozied up.
5:30AM Alarm goes off. Meg resets it for 6. Rain starts to fall in decent sheets. I get up and close the windows, except for one near the bed, because it smells good.
6AM Meg’s up for the day, preparing for work. Father and child sleep in, because they can! It’s a sick day without being sick! A snow day without snow!
6:52AM Meg leaves for work. Kisses us goodbye. Says we look just like one another, with our heads on the same pillow, blanket pulled up around us. She leaves baby instructions on the table. “Don’t drop her!” (JK)
7:30AM Baby and father awake, look at one another, have a small chat about our day, decide to get up. Both feeling tired. Both needing morning beverages.
7:40AM Diaper change #1. Afterwards, I set her on her playpad in the living room while I make coffee and warm her bottle.
7:53am Begin feeding daughter. She’s hungry and readily takes it for a few swigs. Then she is all smiles and wants to play. She licks at her bottle and smiles at me while wriggling around. We play for awhile. It’s fun. But there’s work to do.
8:20am Finally she gets serious about taking her bottle. I had to put her down on the playpad for awhile to think about it.
8:45am Meg calls. We discuss the day as Maeva finishes her bottle.
9:03am I call into work and tell Jon I won’t be in today. As a dedicated parent and understanding boss, he says “no problem” even though it means closing the office because no one will be there. Life goes on.
9:06am Swing time! She’s vocal and sleepy.
9:22am Asleep in her swing with the help of her nuk. She was fighting it a bit, but papa got the job done. I head for a 2 minute shower. And drink another cup of coffee while checking emails. She sleeps soundly in her side-to-side swing.
9:52am She wriggles awake. I was hoping she would be down for an hour or so, but 30 minutes is all we get.
10:07am Diaper change #2. She is tired. I give her a sponge bath and wipe her sleepy eyes and milky chin. Dress her for the day in striped pants and a bright yellow shirt.
10:21am Tummy time! I put her on the playpad, one of those colorful padded affairs with little trinkets and animals hanging down. She wriggles for awhile. She seems a bit unsettled this morning. Grumpy perhaps.
10:34am I read her the “Grouchy Ladybug” in bed, thinking perhaps she’ll go back to sleep. No luck. I can get her to smile, but she does it only briefly and then she returns to general “hrrumph hrrrumph!”
10:47am We hit the playpad again. I’m tired of baby music, so I switch the playlist to some rock n roll.
11am She has a small freakout while she is awaiting bottle. She is hungry now! Crying and generally restless.
11:04am Bottle feed
11:25am Finish bottle. All relaxed and sleepy.
11:29am Diaper change #3. Pretty good blow-out.
11:33am I put her in the Bjorn and we walk around the house a moment, preparing for a walk outside. I realize that V neck t-shirts are not going to work, as she is grabbing onto and removing tiny handfuls of my chesthair. Ouch!
11:39am Out the door in the stroller. We walk the parkway, while she pretty much refuses to sleep. She fusses and squirts around. Her stocking foot gets stuck to the velcro window openings, which cracks papa up.
12:10pm Meg calls for a briefing. Afterwards Maeva begins to sleep finally. I have to push the stroller though the bumpy grass to put her to sleep.
12:46pm Back from walk. I gently put Maeva into the swing for more sleeping. She continues to nap, despite waking briefly.
1:21pm Up from nap in swing. Irritable. She awoke crying, which is rare.
1:40pm Crying for next bottle. “I’m hungry!” It’s every 2 hours with this girl.
1:50pm Bottle time. She’s irritable and just plain grumpy.
2:10pm Finished bottle. Still grumpy. Is this what teenage years are like?
2:20pm Crib time. I try to coax a little more sleep out of her. No luck. She cries.
2:25pm We hit the rocker. She’s not having that at all. She’s moving around and kicking her legs. Doesn’t want to be held. Doesn’t want to be put down. She’s crying. Meg calls.
2:37pm We return to the swing, a foolproof option. The pacifier helps. She calms down, but tries to fight it. She is having an off day. Normally she never fusses.
2:40pm We take a nap on the bed together. It’s nice. I watch her fall asleep and then I too fall asleep. Why not? It’s a sick day. I watch a little TV too, just because I can.
3:45pm She awakes crying. Perhaps it’s because she got her shots yesterday. This is becoming weird. I don’t think I have ever seen her wake up crying. She’s a little tyrant.
3:56pm Tummy time while papa catches up on the events of the day.
4:07pm I put her in the bjorn and head down to the basement man office. I have a mind to fix my bike. But first we clean up the camping gear that is laying around from the last trip to the BWCA. She is happy to see my bikes and help me organize my fishing gear for next weekend. The change of scenery does her good. Plus, it’s cooler down there. She is content as a lark, just looking around.
4:51pm Megan arrives back home. We are both happy to see her. It was a challenging first day for a stay-at-home papa. (Probably for a stay-at-home daughter as well.) But through it all, I realized that Megan has really developed excellent technique as a mother. She has developed tiny details of caring, little things that make a great difference. Like the way she pats Maeva’s butt gently as she feeds her. And the way she stops feeding 4/5 the way through, so she can change Maeva’s diaper and then put her down after finishing feeding when she is sleepy and cozy. Little details that, it occurs to me, I have been remiss in noting. But I can tell they are there, and I tried to recall them all day long today. It’s these little details, this motherly technique, which all strung together create a very comfortable life for our daughter. I can take care of our daughter for a day, any day, for many days. For years. I can protect and comfort her and generally I do a pretty good job. I’ve got decent skills. Maeva’s smile tells me so. But I don’t have Meg’s mother technique. I watch and learn, but I can see that she’s at another level. It’s like watching a fine artist, or a true blue computer geek. I’ll never be either one. I’m OK with that.
Mother Megan came home, swept up our little girl, fed her and coddled her and most of the day’s aches and complaints were swept away in moments. She was, I was somewhat happy to see, still a little fussy – even with ma. But she got over it. And papa did too, as he went back down into the basement, cracked a cold one and fixed on his bicycle. My job is done for the day, and I have a loose bottom bracket to fix. Everyone is safe and comfortable and healthy. There’s not much more you can ask for. The roof over our heads kept out the rain all day long. And tonight we’ll sleep soundly, to wake tomorrow and to do it all over again.
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