A One-Month Old's Itinerary.

I've come to understand that getting a one-month old on a schedule is a lot like trying to train Louie to talk. A fun idea, but next to impossible. Before Adelyn arrived I said funny things like, "I'll let her nap in her crib and sleep at night in the Pack 'N Play," and "We'll feed her every night at 10 and then read her a book before bed," or "I'll get work done while she sleeps."

Funny, funny things.

It turns out that Adelyn will sleep where she wants, when she wants. I can try to get work done while she sleeps, but as soon as her eyelids start to droop I'm confronted with a 10-page list of things I want to do--sleep? shower? write? read? clean?--and inevitably she'll wake up before I've barely had a chance to tackle the first task. I can bathe her 'til my fingers turn into raisins at night but it doesn't mean she'll sleep any better than if she was covered in her own filth.

(Keep in mind I'm talking about my daughter here, she who is perfectly content sitting in her own soiled diaper. I have to play the guessing game on the whole diaper-changing front.)

In another month or so I think I'll jump back on the schedule-train, mostly because I'm the sort of person that doesn't do so well without structure. I'd like to say I'm a free-spirit--it's certainly what I've always marketed myself as--but truthfully I'm happiest when I wake up at the same early time every morning, when I have certain landmarks throughout my day.

Adelyn's created her own sort-of schedule for the time being, and Jason and I have done a pretty good job, I think, at finding a compromise within it.

When Jason gets home from work, we eat dinner and spend a little while hanging out with each other while Adelyn naps. Sometimes we give her a bath (usually every two days or so) or we sing and play guitar for her. Then, around 10 or so, I go to sleep. Jason stays up with her until 1-ish (it's his only time throughout the day to really get one-on-one time with her), feeds her one more time, and then swaddles her and brings her up to our room, where she sleeps in a Pack 'N Play next to our bed. She--usually--will sleep until 5:30ish (today it was 6:30, but I don't want to jinx it), and I get up and feed her. Jason sleeps until 7:30 or 8 and goes to work. It's not perfect, but it's working. For now. I feel almost bad saying that we're both getting survivable rest with a newborn at home.

I thought it was supposed to be the night-time that made new parents want to rethink the whole procreating thing. Jason and I have found a pretty good rhythm, though, when the sun goes down. It's during the day that I feel so frazzled and constantly on-call.

The mornings are the only sort-of predictable thing. Adelyn's been staying awake for a good two or three hours after her first feeding, and this is the time I get the most interaction with her.

From this morning, for example:

And did you have any idea that when babies sneeze, you can actually hear a teeny, tiny, audible "achoo?" I can't get enough of her little achoos.

Adelyn had fallen asleep right before I started writing this. Writing took first place among my list of to-dos for the morning. And now that I'm done, she's awake and hungry. So the rest--like washing my face or finishing the laundry from yesterday--are forced onto the back-burner. Until the next nap.