October 31, 2005

The time change sucks. You heard me say it. Yup, for all those of you out there with a little one who has no idea what a time change is or, for that matter, needs a little lesson about time in general (not to mention relativety and.. well, I guess physics in general), you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Hayes got up at 5 this morning. Last week if he got up then it was six. Six is a good time. Five is not. Five sucks like the time change.

He did this despite us keeping him up to the unhead of time of 7:30 (well, 6:30 after all this daylight savings nonsense) to make sure he’d get the picture and sleep a bit more. Didn’t happen.

Funny thing is, before HBomb showed up, this time change was that awesome once-a-year extra hour of sleep. You could get up what felt like an hour late and still get to work on time! Now, with child, I get to get up an hour earlier than last week?!? Man, this time change sucks.

October 18, 2005

There’s nothing like getting a wrong-number call at 2:30 in the morning to ruin your sleep. Throw that in with trying to negotiate a deal for a house with a certifiably crazy home-owner. Then toss in Hayes waking up for absolutely no reason what-so-ever and bawling until Jen went in. 3 Times. So, basically from 2:30 on I got 2 hours of sleep. And that was only because I have a wonderful wife who took pitty on her poor sleep deprived complaining wimp of a husband and let him sleep from 6-8am.

Worse still, this is the second night I have gotten no sleep. Though, admittedly, the Sunday night was entirely my fault. I just got into that thinking about everything mode and then had a dream about our cat and a carp fighting on the carpet with the carp ultimately killing the cat. Disturbing.

Better luck tonight? Let’s hope so.

October 5, 2005

I always wanted to write one of those New York Post, Boston Herald type headlines. You know the ones. It’s writen to deceive, all the while, telling the truth. It sells papers.

Much in the same way those headlines are true, Jen did leave me. She went on a business trip to California on Sunday and won’t be back until Friday morning. She left me with Hayes. And boy are my arms tired! Oh, wait, that’s the joke about flying. I’m tired. Really tired. Being the primary caregiver for the HBomb is hard work!

Ok, so I’m not the only caregiver. We have our part-time nanny whom we’ve enlisted to cover a few more hours to give me a break. And thank god for that. But, truth be told, being the one that feeds Hayes breakfast and dinner and puts him in bed at night and gets up with him in the morning is not a job for the meek.

Remember a long while back when I made that deal with Hayes to only have him shit on his mom’s watch? Yah, well he’s violated that one. About 4 times a day.

He’s also decided to change his bedtime every day, just to throw daddy off his schedule. And then, to make things extra fun, he’s started getting up super early. Yesterday it was 5:30, today, 6 (which was not that bad). He’s driven me to an early 8 o’clock bedtime just to keep up.

So, it’s day 3 of no Jen. H is screaming over the monitor as I type, as he, apparently, is brushing off his own signals that he’s tired. She’s back on Friday. Oh, can’t wait!

September 8, 2005

I used to like night NFL football. It used to be a fun reason to be groggy at work… or miss class in college. Now, with Hayes, it just sucks.

I’m exhausted. It’s 11:45 with 12 minutes left. Sure, all fine and good in the Pacific Time Zone. And fantastic in Hawaii. But totally penalizing the guy with the kid who gets up at 6am, a job and a wife with job. Oh well. At least it’s football season again.

Ahhh… football.

BTW, does anyone else notice that Randy Moss seems totally indifferent to whether his team wins or loses? Just asking.

July 19, 2005

I think H’s morning wake-up schedule would even out if not for the earthquake upstairs. Not that it happens everymorning, but when it does, the first thing we hear is the earthquake, then H. Sometimes H is crying, others, babbling, but whatever it is, there’s one thing for certain… he’s awake.

Funny thing is, the earthquake is caused by dogs. Not just any dogs either, french bulldogs. And they are small dogs.

Ok, let me explain. For reasons unknown to us, the dogs go on tears through the bottom floor of the condo above our sleeping area. For those of you who haven’t visited our place (which, I’m guessing, is most of you) our condo is set up to have two different upstairs neighbors. Above our kithcn and living area is a quiet single woman. Above our bedroom is a quiet couple… and their loud dogs.

I just can’t figure out how two twenty pound dogs can make it sound like a train is rumbling through the condo. I don’t get it. I know they’ve got hardwood floors up there, but it’s ridiculous. I keep waiting for the “choo-choo” and all I get is a “Whaaaaa!” from the monitor.

May 31, 2005

Zero. That’s how many times Hayes woke up between 8PM and 6AM. None. Zip. I know, it’s crazy. Even more crazy is that it never got that bad. In fact, the first night he went without food and only woke up twice. By Sunday night he only awoke once at 3:45Am and was bacl to sleep in 15 minutes.

Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think it would be so easy to get HBomb to sleep through the night. Better still are the other side effects of his new sleep patterns: he eats more less often and he take longer naps without needing the 10 minutes of rocking that he used to. And you know what, I’m not even afraid of jinxing it. Yes, the Ferber Method works, and once horrible sleeping H is living proff. Thank you Dr Ferber!