Friday 4 February 2011

Housekeeping

Ahem...  Right... So... Err... Gosh, it's been a while. I'm kind of out of practice at this.  Bear with me...

It occurred to me that this blog could really do with some sort of rounding off post(s).  Some sort of "in hindsight" kind of thing, addressing some of the issues I talked about back when I actually talked about anything.  So that's what this is.  A recap and review.  A bit of a catch up will follow in a later post.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear...

Reading back through these posts, the first thing that jumps out at me is, "Gosh, I worried about everything, didn't I?"  I suspect that barely constrained terror is the natural state for first time new parents (and maybe second, third, fourth or even more-th new parents), so it's not that I feel silly about it.  It's just noticeable how much it influenced my thoughts back then.

I can't really say when the worry faded.  I guess it was a gradual thing.  Slowly you begin to see that your child is doing well, that you haven't dropped them on their head (or at least not from any significant height - falling off the couch doesn't count) and that they are happy and healthy.  (At least, assuming nothing horrible has happened.  That it didn't is something I'm eternally grateful for.)  You become better at distinguishing between "there's something horribly wrong!" and "I want to touch the cat!" cries.  You begin to understand your child's routine and act upon it.  (He's getting grumpy + it's 12:30 = nap time.)  Play becomes fun for both parties, some of the time.  (Other times, man, you just don't want to have to fetch that ball from under the seat once more.)

Obviously there are still worries.  Is it safe to let him play with a hoover?  (Probably not, but it's much less hassle than not letting him do so!)  How do we get him to sleep past 5:30am?  (No idea.)  Is he big enough to play on the slide?  (Yes, sort of.)  But somehow, they are lesser worries.  The elephant of terror that came and squatted in my guts for the first 9 months of Alex's life has upped and buggered off.  Yes, it's stressful.  Yes, you worry.  But it's less oppressive.  Less all encompassing.  Thank god.

And Another Thing...

The other thing I notice a lot of in my old posts is sleep, or the lack thereof.   That's still an issue.  Alex's sleep has been somewhat erratic for quite a while now.  Basically he has been tending to wake up between 5am and 5:30am.  We've tried a bunch of things (which I'll cover in the catch up post), but nothing has really taken.  I guess that a lack of sleep is just a function of parenthood.  For anyone expecting, get your shut eye in now!  People are not exaggerating when they say you'll be more tired than you've ever been.  What are you doing even reading this?  Get to bed!  Now!

No comments:

Post a Comment