There's a couple of things I want to set straight, punkling. Firstly, whilst your sleeping issues have been the source of some frustration for your mum and I, they're certainly nothing out of the ordinary for a person of your age (16 days today). To that end, we were hassled and tired and categorically knackered, but we weren't particularly worried about you being some kind of freaky sleepless child or anything (I read a book about that once, a group of super children who didn't need to sleep, but I digress).
Certainly, it's been incredibly gratifying to receive advice, suggestions and support from the many wonderful and lovely people who read this site, along with the sterling staff from the The Maternal and Child Health Program and other friends / colleagues.
The endpoint which I am trying to reach with this dialogue is, of course, the following.
Last night, you slept.
Of course, I wasn't there to see this, having escaped once again to the spare room under the pretense of having to work today, but your mother assures me that about 10 minutes after I ran out of the room under cover of darkness, you SETTLED DOWN, punkling, and WENT TO SLEEP.
She goes on to report that you awoke briefly at 3am for a feed, and then again at 6, exactly as you were suppposed to.
So punkling, I'd like to say here that your mother thanks you. I thank you. My work thanks you. My sanity, mood and general outlook thank you, and I can safely say that at least for today, I'm not looking for my receipt and trying to figure out the return policy for small boys.
Love you.
1 comment:
Heya Bram-meister.
It feels a bit odd posting here for the first time now, since I first saw and held you way back on the day after you were born. But despite the fact that this was indeed a most Momentous Occasion (not least for yourself and your parents) I couldn't quite get it together before this moment to do anything more immediate.
If I’m still around the place when you're old enough to read this, you'll understand. The thing is, ol' Uncle Fuzzy (relax, we’re not related, it's just an old, largely-unused nickname...), well, he can be a bit...lackadaisical...when it comes to things like timely posting on blogs…
…and then when he finally does post, he overcompensates by writing something rather longer than is probably necessary.
Like now. :)
But rest assured that I was indeed there on the day after your birth. Aunty Zana (again, the title is purely non-biological) and I showed up late in the afternoon, as I had been working at the Museum, which is about ten minutes walk from the hospital where you were first launched onto an unsuspecting universe.
We timed our arrival well, with you being right in the middle of a feed, as is the way of these things, but your parents welcomed us in and shortly thereafter, once you'd fuelled up, we got to hold you at last.
I won't dwell on what a good-looking baby you are, as others have already said plenty on that score, and of course they're right. What really impressed me though was your almost preternatural sense of both yourself and where you were, which combined rather impressively with a Zen-like serenity you exuded for pretty much the entire time we were there.
Of course, in hindsight, it's likely that your entire lack of visual focusing ability at that stage in your development may have also played a part in conveying an aura of detached calm. (Particularly when contrasted with more recent accounts of your sterling efforts to disrupt your parents sleep patterns with relentless, banshee-like wailing.)
Anyway, I've just realised that I have indeed "gone on a bit" for what should be a short-ish blog comment, so I might just wrap it up for the moment, apart from to say that it was both a pleasure and an honour to meet you at such an early juncture, and if you ever need any advice in future regarding the relative merits of such things as pintail vs. squaretail surfboards, or how to play a whole bunch of different musical instruments badly, or even the correct handgrip for wielding a traditional Chinese longsword, you know who to call.
Oh, and maybe let your parents get another good night's sleep tonight, eh? Sure, it might be fun making all that noise and messing with their heads, but a bit of foundation building now could pay dividends later on, when you want the money for that first bike/motorbike/computer/car/lightsaber.
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