The Surge and the Grandparents

I want Congress to pass a bill condemning Seamus' sleep habits of Wednesday and Thursday nights. For almost 48 hours, he slept only in less-than-two-hour segments -- sometime as little as ten minutes at at time for long stretches. In between these naps, he would loudly demand Greta's feeding services. By yesterday morning, she was running on fumes. Leaving her at home alone felt like condoning torture. "I'm trying to think of this in terms of his needs, rather than mine," she IM'ed me while I was at work, and I admired her ability to rise above her exhaustion.


Fortunately, a) even when we're exhausted, it's obvious to us that he is very cute and lovable, and b) on Thursday, Granny Frannie and Grand Poobah John broke up our routine by paying us a visit. We cleaned up by scraping a couple layers of cat hair off of the couch and shoveling all of the baby detritus to one side. Fran brought us a beautiful blanket that she had made for Seamus, and, as you can see, he curled up with it in her lap and slept while the adults socialized.

It was so good to see those two crazy kids, and on their thirty-second wedding anniversary, no less! My only complaint was that their visit was so short ... perhaps I could persuade them to move to Manhattan. No doubt the fact that they spent their first day of this visit sheltering from a stinging rain of freaking ice pellets has ruined any chance of that, though. Especially since they live in a place where they can grow avocados outside their door, and watch the sunset turn the Santa Ynez Mountains purple and blue every night.

After we packed Fran and John off to Lupa for their anniversary dinner, Greta went on the La Leche League site and discovered what's probably been happening with Seamie: a third-week growth spurt, right on schedule ... which meant that his sleeplessness was not going to last much longer. And indeed, last night he returned to (what we hope is) his regular habit of sleeping in about three-hour chunks. So this morning, the world looks brighter, birds are singing, and I've removed my "Free Baby" ad from Craigslist.