Mission report

Unfortunately, last week-end saw the end of the biggest chunk of my paternity leave - the part where I am the kiddo's lone caretaker during daytime. I thought I'd write a couple of lines, leaving some words of wisdom (hopefully) for others to use when their turn comes.

It was quite a ride. The first week was quite atrocious: Alex was recovering from a cold and I had to fight food poisoning and then a broken tooth (note: no, this does not mark the end of my ice hockey career!). Needless to say, these all did not help with adjusting to each other.

Being new parentS is hard; being A new parent (no outside help) is way harder. Whenever things are getting complicated (and they do), you can't play the "significant other" card to bail you out: you're on your own. And with that, let's applaude Joelle for the great job she did during week 3-6 when I was back to work.

Clap, clap, clap.

What do I mean by "hard"? I think the unclear signals is what killed me at first. Tell me you need X, Y, Z and I'll get them. Tell me to wait for that much time, and I'll wait. With the little Monsieur, no such thing: all you get is some crying (a lot of it sometimes), and good luck to you trying to decipher what the matter is!
But hey, you start getting it pretty quickly: the "I'm hungry" crying, the "I need a new diaper" crying, the "I want to sleep but really I can't just fall asleep on my own otherwise it would be too easy" crying etc...

Then comes the next step: finding the right rhythm. I had been told babies were little machines: sleep, eat, poop, sleep, eat, poop, sleep, you get the idea. Alas, it's slightly less smooth. Sometimes he'll sleep for 3 hours, sometimes he'll sleep for 30 minutes. Sometimes he'll wake up hungry, sometimes he'll want to play. This used to drive me nuts as I would not be able to plan anything - I did not eat much the very first days!

To me, the solution was to find Alexandre's constants - actually our constants. Here's what's not a constant:

• the duration of the sleeping sessions;
• the amount of milk he'll drink at once;
• the frequency/volume of his, hmm, pieces of art.

I had to dig to find our constants, but I got them:

• he does not eat after sleeping, but likes playing (which at this point boils down to telling the details of his life to an octopus hanging over his head);
• every time he's awake, he needs some "vertical" time, i.e. time where he's either sitting on my lap or looking over my shoulder, in both cases just observing what's happening all around;
• every play session should include a Q&A part where he tells me about what the octopus told him;
• drinking is not done in one shot as there needs to be some short time to reflect on what happened - talking is encouraged;
• "I do not want to sleep, waaaaa, waaa, waa, wa, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."
• there's about 1h45 between two naps.

Once we got the constants right, the two of us had a real blast. It's still tiring and not straightforward, but you get so much in return that it does not matter.

I used to think I'd really start enjoying being with my son once he starts interacting with us more, walk, talk, play soccer, etc... While I'm still looking forward to that time, I am already, unexpectedly both deeply mesmerized and truly in love with this little dude. I can't wait for the next time he'll wake up!