Welcome & The Breakdown

For those of you who've already experienced the first half of this mayhem, welcome back. For those of you just joining, disregard the previous statement. <*awkward silence*>

So.

The day my husband and I brought Rain, our new daughter, home from the hospital, I had my first lesson in parenting. See, I had read the parenting books, subscribed to the magazines, perused the websites, listened to the familial advice, taken the parenting classes--oh, I'd done it all. With these tools in hand, I'd carefully devised a mental list of WILL NOTS (a list of rules that under no circumstances, under no pressure, would we break):

1. No pacifiers. Pacifiers are disgusting, and no baby should have one.

2. No formula. Breastmilk is best, so breastmilk it is.

3. No babies in my bed--that's what cribs are for.

For nine months I coddled my list of WILL NOTS, nurturing them and keeping them close to my heart. They were reasonable, I thought, and clearly in the best interest of the baby.

But babies, unfortunately, are like military commanders in secret foreign camps: with the simplest of techniques, they're able to extract exactly what they want while simultaneously crushing your spirit. See, most of us can go without food for a while, and having to change the time of day we eat or the amount is a nuisance, but not soul-damaging. Other basic needs, like shelter and water, also stay relatively the same after a baby comes home. So what is the one thing that is necessary, critical, and therefore, the most efficient way to break a person down?

Sleep. This, my friends, is the way a baby quickly disposes of your defenses and neatly crumples your list of WILL NOTS. Sure, my husband & I had heard other parents laugh and say, "Get all the sleep you can before the baby comes," but we didn't realize they were laughing from pity.

Rain is now 6 weeks old, and by Week 1, my husband and I, both reasonable, law-abiding people, were willing to do anything short of drugging her (though the idea was tossed around) to get more sleep. Our baby is what people politely call "challenging," "active," and "alert." These are code words for taskmaster. Tim & I love our baby, so we accepted our roles as underlings and promptly set about finding ways to soothe her. And so began our journey of finding just the right tool, regardless of price, to keep her dreaming for even a few minutes longer. Plug the baby with a pacifier and grab your bags, kids--we're going shopping.