Sleep of the Blump

He's asleep! And it seems as though it might stick for a while, even though I've had the temerity to put him down and start typing with two hands. I've been incessantly composing blog posts in my head lo these six weeks, but somehow it never seems to happen that I can actually sit at my computer and put ten fingers on the keyboard.

Of course, now that I'm finally here, I don't know what to say first. I could go in a thousand directions, and I don't know how much time I'll have. It's kind of theatrical and silly--I'm like a spy or a secret lover, sneaking off to send a long-delayed message. Tiptoeing strenuously around with my index finger in front of my round mouth.

Probably the first thing I should do is to put right the lingering impression of poor Baby Emerson as a generator of stink. As it turned out, his rotten-egghood lasted only a couple of days, and as soon as he'd had a poop that wasn't meconium, the smell stopped. Who knows what that was about. Immature digestive tract, something, something. But anyway, it's over now. I even sort of missed it for a couple days, it had been so... distinctive. All of which is not to say that he stopped passing gas, mind you--he's actually quite prodigious in that regard, my favorite being the cheerful little series of pbbfts he emits as he's waking up from sleep and stretching himself this way and that--but it's been almost completely odorless.

Oh, man. He's waking up, and... ooh, maybe he was just crying in his sleep. Whew. He does that sometimes. He also smiles and laughs in his sleep, which can be ridiculously charming. Eyes closed, and big gummy grins, with a squeaky bark of laughter every so often. He smiles occasionally awake now, too, but it's much less often than in his sleep, where he seems to have perpetual parties to attend and friends to greet (if also very serious business to contemplate and disappointments to endure--the variety and distinctness of his facial expressions lead us to believe he has an incredibly rich dream life, next to which his waking routines of eating, fussing, staring at the windows, and having his diaper changed must be pretty dry stuff).

So. Early infancy is really not my favorite. Nope. Still isn't. I guess it is better with Emerson than the first time around, with Cassie. For one thing, I'm not nearly so tortured about having terribly little breast milk and having to provide most of the babe's nutrition from endless bottles of formula. For another thing, I'm on the Prozac, which really has to be to the good. But also, there's at least a sense of the finiteness of this particularly arduous stage. With Cassie, I felt acutely and sometimes almost hysterically that I would never have any freedom of movement or peace or rest ever, ever again. And although parenthood is kind of bad in that way, it's not really as bad as all that. As my brother Eric says, it keeps getting easier as the child grows. And that has been my experience with Cassie, too. Slowly, but actually pretty steadily--a little easier, a little easier. And you get used to it. You truly do. That part about never really being all the way off-duty--it gets to be just a normal state of things rather than a terrific unaccustomed burden.

But still, the first six weeks just suck, and I'm glad they're behind us. The second six weeks are no picnic, either, but at least sleep starts to coalesce. Anyway, it has for Cassie and now Emerson. Emerson, the dear, has actually slept through the night twice now (and almost did last night, except for a few minutes of bleary breastfeeding before dropping right back off). Six to seven hours at a stretch. That's a beautiful thing. Pete's mom says he didn't sleep through the night until he was two years old, by which time his parents were so conditioned to his schedule that even when he finally submitted to a full night's slumber, they kept waking up around 3 or 4 for no good reason.

I wonder whether I'll ever have any nostalgia for my children's babyhood. I know a lot of people do, but I have trouble picturing it for myself. Emerson really is a sweet and delicious baby, with a lovely face and crazy-soft skin. He even likes to cuddle right in, and tuck his warm little head under your neck, which is ridiculously endearing (and never was Cassie's style--she insisted on being held as an infant, but never was particularly snuggly). Pete calls him the Blump for the way he tucks himself all up into a limbless little cuddly bundle. But still I can't wait for him to get older, to stop being a baby and be a toddler. "If they could only stay little till their Carters wear out"? No, no, no. I am more than delighted to pack up those boxes of hand-me-downs and move on up, thanks. Really.

Oh dear. Well, now he's up in earnest, and I'm reduced to typing one-handed, which is kind of difficult to maintain. I do fully intend to keep blogging now that I've started again, though. It's much more satisfying than just writing in my head. I'll figure out some way. Really, I guess there is always typing one-handed. It's probably worth it.