Trade

The first night in a week and a half that I've had more than two hours of sleep, and I'm up at five a.m. with a bowl of cereal and a jillion thoughts hopping around like popcorn in my head.  I feel more refreshed than I have the right to be for keeping such hours....maybe that's my body rewarding me for all the late night mommying shifts I've been pulling.

I have some glad news to share, just in time for the holidays: Ava's appetite decided to drop back in on us while we were all iced in at home over the past weekend!  I was so thrilled, I fed her anything that I thought she could chew --  carrot mush, yogurt, pickles, bits of soft blueberry cereal, mashed potatoes clogged with butter and nutmeg, mashed baked beans -- everything but the dog chow in Honey's bowl.  And it was FUN.  Ava would get so wound up in response, I would have to wait for her to stop dancing and waggling her head back and forth after every bite in order to hit my aim with the baby spoon (lest I accidentally poke her in the uvula.  YOW.)

Her oral formula intake went from a hard-fought six ounces (average) to a strong, eager fourteen.  We still kept her on the pump at a low rate through most of the day and during her evening sleep, but this sudden shift in dedication to her bottle made us feel that Christmas had arrived early.  Now I spend quite a bit of the day curled up with her in the nursery glider, contentedly administering ounce after ounce.  There's no fight, no fidget.  It might still take her awhile to finish a bottle at her speed, but the way I see it, we're making up precious snuggle time that we lost back this summer.  

On the flip side of this lucky coin, it seems as if we've traded appetite for the ability to sleep soundly -- the very day her appetite began to perk up, Daddy and I woke in alternating shifts to soothe the fitful whimpering and tossing going on in the bassinet next to us.  (And before you raise your eyebrow at us for keeping our eleven month old in our room instead of hers, kindly recall that she sleeps hooked up to a machine that sometimes makes her sick with the force of Old Faithful.  We will NOT sleep more than an arm's length from her until this subsides.)

At first, we thought that she was "going through a phase", as this seems to be the typical explanation for behavior a parent or doctor can't explain.  She would sleep like an angel for two hours, then the flop-a-thon would commence, punctuated by little sobs.  

I guess it's just our turn to be the bleary-eyed parents for awhile, and that's fine.  Of all the wackiness we've been through with our silly guppy, a "difficult phase" almost seems reassuringly.....normal.  And hey, it's a fair excuse to drink cup after cup of very good coffee.  So if we're on your Christmas list, put Ava down for a jar of dill chips and her zombified Ma and Da for a bag of nice, full-bodied Sumatra.  

Here's to lovingly guided progress and excessive caffeination!

Cheers, Merry Christmas & Jubilate Deo!

The "Clenneycicles"