Hackneyed phrases about the relative speed and/or aeronautical qualities of time (when having fun or otherwise) aside, Sidney is one week old today. Given that this short period of time we have spent together is not nearly enough for me to realistically discuss his personality, likes, etc. as of yet (oh, and there is the whole thing about him only being one week old), what we can discuss are the changes in my daily routine introduced by Sidney. Some of them I expected, some were a surprise, but I will endeavor to make them all entertaining for you (I said endeavor; lawyers should always avoid stating absolutes ... oh crap).
1) I no longer have a committed relationship with sleep, but rather a clandestine affair. "New baby? Say goodbye to sleep!" is what you hear from every Tom, Dick and Captain Obvious that finds out you are expecting a child. However, not only is this formulation of the "fact" beyond purple-prose (which reminds me, is "purple prose" itself purple prose at this point?), but it is quite inaccurate. You do not "say goodbye to sleep", because it is still in your life; what you do is start an affair with sleep. Hear me out on this one. No longer is it a certain part of your life, waiting for you at the end of a long day with a warm kiss and gentle embrace. No, sleep is now something you sneak away with, hoping you don't get caught by the jealous and possessive Feeding Time, Changing Time, and/or I Want To Be Up Now Daddy Time. What you now have with sleep are highly anticipated, but sporadic, interludes on beds, couches, and chairs, stolen moments during the day, and as euphoric and satisfying as each encounter is, you are constantly either fearing being interrupted or are burdened with a tremendous guilt for giving in to the desire. You catch yourself day-dreaming about sleep, about the next time you'll get to steal away for a nap ... I mean tryst. Sleep is still in your life, it is just something you have to sneak around for, make elaborate plans to get, and if caught doing it by any of the jealous Times, you will be sorry.
2) I see sunrises. I know there are a good portion of you that likely are up before the sun each day (*cough*the Admiral and Nana*cough*), but that generally was not me. The Wife and I moved into the City last year for many reasons, one of which being that we'd have better commutes to work. Case in point, I now walk to work in under 15 minutes. This means that I have been able to stave off starting my day until 8 on average, and we wont discuss weekends. Even before that, my day rarely started before 7, and you'd have to go all the way back to law school for when I regularly saw sunrises, and then it was usually because I had stayed up to sunrise, not woken up just before it. My point? To me sunrises were things discussed by poets, weathermen and insomniacs. Now, sunrises are what happen during a Feeding Time. I am not complaining, because Sindey is wonderful company, I am just saying I need to brush up on my open verse because I can't track barometric pressure and I am not buying Snuggies(tm) at 3am.
3) I schedule everything around Feeding Times. This one sounds obvious, and I thought I was ready for it. The problem with my plan (aside from contact with reality ... thank you Sun Tzu) was how I had defined "Feeding Time." You see, I was under the foolish impression that once Sidney ate, setting Feeding Times was going to be as easy as feeding him and then counting forward x hours to the next Feeding Time, x being a straight function of his age, stomach size and appetite. Cue Family Feud Buzzer. It turns out that x is, in fact, a wave function (although at times it feels more like a random transposition model or some other stochastic process) subject to multiple variables, only a few of which are knowable. In simpler terms, a Feeding Times is when Sindey decides it is a Feeding Time. This makes planning anything (showering, cleaning up, eating, writing a witty blog) interesting. For the most part, the resulting schedule looks like this: do whatever it is you were planning on doing immediately after a Feeding Time, and make sure it takes two hours or less. (Case in point, finishing this entry has taken 4 tries.)
4) Clocks, watches, calendars, sun dials and all other manner of reckoning time are baffling. I don't know whether it is garden variety disorientation, exotic date/time term specific aphasia, or House M.D. inspired sleep deprivation induced psychosis, but I have no idea what time and/or day it is at any given moment. Looking at a clock and/or calendar does not help either; all that accomplishes is that I stare blankly at the device and wonder if it needs to be fed or changed. After a few moments, though, clarity occasionally sets in and I am jarred back to reality. The whole experience is only relatively off, however, as I can still fathom distance and discern speed (who doesn't love a physics pun).
Sidney is stirring, which means it is a Feeding Time. I am starting to wonder if Schrödinger was babysitting when he had his epiphany.
2) I see sunrises. I know there are a good portion of you that likely are up before the sun each day (*cough*the Admiral and Nana*cough*), but that generally was not me. The Wife and I moved into the City last year for many reasons, one of which being that we'd have better commutes to work. Case in point, I now walk to work in under 15 minutes. This means that I have been able to stave off starting my day until 8 on average, and we wont discuss weekends. Even before that, my day rarely started before 7, and you'd have to go all the way back to law school for when I regularly saw sunrises, and then it was usually because I had stayed up to sunrise, not woken up just before it. My point? To me sunrises were things discussed by poets, weathermen and insomniacs. Now, sunrises are what happen during a Feeding Time. I am not complaining, because Sindey is wonderful company, I am just saying I need to brush up on my open verse because I can't track barometric pressure and I am not buying Snuggies(tm) at 3am.
3) I schedule everything around Feeding Times. This one sounds obvious, and I thought I was ready for it. The problem with my plan (aside from contact with reality ... thank you Sun Tzu) was how I had defined "Feeding Time." You see, I was under the foolish impression that once Sidney ate, setting Feeding Times was going to be as easy as feeding him and then counting forward x hours to the next Feeding Time, x being a straight function of his age, stomach size and appetite. Cue Family Feud Buzzer. It turns out that x is, in fact, a wave function (although at times it feels more like a random transposition model or some other stochastic process) subject to multiple variables, only a few of which are knowable. In simpler terms, a Feeding Times is when Sindey decides it is a Feeding Time. This makes planning anything (showering, cleaning up, eating, writing a witty blog) interesting. For the most part, the resulting schedule looks like this: do whatever it is you were planning on doing immediately after a Feeding Time, and make sure it takes two hours or less. (Case in point, finishing this entry has taken 4 tries.)
4) Clocks, watches, calendars, sun dials and all other manner of reckoning time are baffling. I don't know whether it is garden variety disorientation, exotic date/time term specific aphasia, or House M.D. inspired sleep deprivation induced psychosis, but I have no idea what time and/or day it is at any given moment. Looking at a clock and/or calendar does not help either; all that accomplishes is that I stare blankly at the device and wonder if it needs to be fed or changed. After a few moments, though, clarity occasionally sets in and I am jarred back to reality. The whole experience is only relatively off, however, as I can still fathom distance and discern speed (who doesn't love a physics pun).
Sidney is stirring, which means it is a Feeding Time. I am starting to wonder if Schrödinger was babysitting when he had his epiphany.
No comments:
Post a Comment