Thursday was a day trip, though, and we have been alone at home now, just the five of us, for seven nights. We’re somewhat settling into a nighttime routine, which is good since our days have been anything but routine. Last Tuesday night Jack woke up screaming at 1:30 a.m., insisting his ear was in severe pain. Amazingly, Max slept through that ordeal (though he did get up for the day Wednesday before 7 a.m.), though Charlie opted to get up for food just after we finally got Jack back to sleep. The upshot was that instead of Kristie’s first “outing” with Charlie — a trip with me and Max to the Apple Store to get her lemonade-infused laptop repaired — we had to get Jack to the pediatrician Wednesday morning.
However, SuperMom decided she could handle taking Jack to the doctor with Charlie in tow, freeing up Doodle and yours truly to get the computer fixed. Max and I had an absolutely wonderful day playing with the demo computers and enjoying a leisurely lunch (Max eats everything leisurely) at Noodles & Company, which must be the place to take a kid or two for lunch when you have no other plans. It felt like a preschool cafeteria in there.
So we had Jack’s sick day, the great-grandparent visit day, a half day of school, then Saturday and Sunday (lots of quality time with Aunt Kim and Uncle Matt) and no school Monday for President’s Day. The wrinkles keep on coming as Max has to go to the dentist Tuesday, shortly after Charlie’s well-baby visit. Jack goes to the dentist Thursday afternoon. Eventually I will return to a normal work schedule. At some point I will resume semi-regular exercise. And when our wonderful church friends stop bringing food by every couple of days, we’ll actually start to prepare our own meals. Until then, we’re still awash in the thrills of “new baby” mode, even though he’s already two weeks old.
Two weeks, of course, is incredibly young. He’s very fragile, hasn’t been away from Kristie for any longer than it takes her to shower and doesn’t really do anything but sleep, eat and poop, except now he occasionally looks at things. Yet because I have brought two boys through this stage already, Charlie at two weeks is a little bit of old hat. He is his own creature, of course, and he will continue to amaze me in little ways I never expected. And it will be awe inspiring.
But while I am somewhat less than enthralled with every waking second than a first-time parent might be, I also feel like Charlie is already more a part of me and our family than I did with Jack at this stage. At two weeks, Jack was a wonder, a changing-every-day, turn-our-house-upside-down, how-in-the-world-are-we-allowed-to-be-parents wonder. But he also had no clue who I was, and when I went back to work after that first week at home I found myself able to, well, concentrate on work like usual. I was not, as I had expected, completely distracted with thoughts of what the baby was doing. I wished I was home helping Kristie, but anyone who encountered me while working on a story or covering a meeting would not have recognized me as a new father. (Yes, I was short on sleep. But I have long appeared sleepy in public, so this was not a giveaway.)
Max, of course, was a different story all together. You’re the only parent in the NICU with a child, you bond pretty much immediately. The first few days of his life where it felt like he and I were almost alone in the world were unlike anything I’ve experienced, before or since. It’s seemed to be somewhat different with each boy, and that’s made it easier to figure out how exactly you go about loving your kids exactly the same and completely different all at once.
I’m not sure if I’m taking this in any particular direction. It is late and I felt I needed to put some thoughts down again this Monday. Hopefully they contain some coherence. If not, well, blame the fact I’ve not slept three continuous hours for a fortnight. That has to buy me some slack, right?
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