My second day on the ‘job’ began at 1:00 a.m. – an unexpected morning feeding, followed by a 4:00 a.m. pacifier (Binky) check and replace. At 5:00 a.m., formula has been prepared for the day, dishes / bottles washed and sterilized, coffee made for mom and a 6:00 a.m. (mom) wakeup for her morning feeding slot has been completed. Now, time to enjoy a little coffee for myself.

Day two –

A colleague used a term that just about describes this day as closely as I can muster on my own – Zombie Feedings. It is not that the baby is a zombie but that the parent’s (my own) ability to function was limited to that of a zombie. The early a.m. feedings compromised my own sleep patterns and left me almost in a zombie like state for the entire day. The 9:00 a.m. feeding went as planned and a quick shopping trip to our nearby grocer was completed without incident – not that I could truly recall much of what happened at the store, only that we bought lots of coffee. After getting the baby down, my mother called to check in with us. A long conversation left me knowing well she is supportive of what we are doing and that she is happy we are actively dedicating such a major part of our lives to our son’s early development. She also left me knowing that help is available, when needed, and that we have an open invitation to visit the grandparent’s house. I did have one request of her: I asked that we could come visit and maybe make a replacement Danish for the one lost yesterday! Later, we had an unexpected visitor from a family friend, who respectfully showed up just after the noon feeding had been completed; father of a 3-year-old, he is familiar with the routines of a newborn. We enjoyed the company and he held our boy for the duration of his visit, admiring his looks – those of his mother at this point. We had quick discussions of a future (second) baby for his family, something he is loathe to at this point but he seems to have some interest judging by the way he looked at and played with our baby and we talked about how things were progressing for our own family. The cooperatively active baby window slowly began to close and our guest went on his way for the day. As I had time, with the baby now resting again, I decided to begin a movie and try to relax. For whatever reason, the movie was stubborn to play and caused me great stress in attempting to get it to function properly. I never did finish watching this movie. Cars again lined the street, from yesterday’s unfortunate events at our neighbor’s, causing our dogs to throw random fits of barking. Then a firestorm erupted from the baby room. 2:15 – baby goes nuclear. For a solid 45 minutes, our son was inconsolable. Presumably, the grand events of the past days had taken their tolls. No tool we had developed to this point (singing rock-a-bye baby, playing itsy-bitsy spider, shushing, cradling, rocking, feeding, changing, singing of the Florida State University war chant…) worked to calm him. I sadly resigned to let him work it out. As tears streamed down his face, I was left only to hold him and painfully watch his suffering and agony. At 3:15, it finally ended. Like the conclusion of a violent storm, followed by a beautiful rainbow and clear skies, all was well again in the world. We finished the routine feeding and carried on with our day. After evening dinner with mom, I was practically incoherent, incompetent and erratic. She put me to bed at 8:30 p.m.