It is currently 8:38. Amelia woke up at 7:00am. Total screaming time so far today = 1 hour 38 minutes.
One thing I have learned is that having a baby is a little bit like teaching. (Yes, everything relates to me.) In teacher's college you spend a ton of time reading about teaching and talking about teaching. But not a ton of time actually teaching. And no matter how much you read or talk about teaching, the only way to have any perspective on it is to actually teach yourself. The same holds true with Amelia. I've read so many different books but nothing prepared me for how many different kinds of fussiness Amelia would have in her arsenal. I thought it was cry or not cry, dirty diaper or not dirty diaper--but all of this changes every hour.
Another thing that happens in teaching is that, at the beginning of your career, you develop a few lessons styles that seem to work all the time. Then one day you try the same lesson style and the kids are bored of it and the day goes terribly. This is what happened with Amelia. For several weekends my system has been to pack Amelia up in her car seat and go for a ride. This gives Heidi a chance to sleep in and me a chance to catch up on podcasts that I have collected through the week. The noise of the car also calms Amelia very well. At least it did until today. She cried while I was putting her in her car seat, while I was driving slow, while I was driving fast, while I was driving from the passenger seat and while I was in line to get coffee. If you listen to commentary on the earthquakes in China with a baby screaming the news is all the scarier.
Which deftly brings me to my second point. Raising a newborn is not that energy efficient. Examples?
- We calm her sometimes by running the shower. She can sense when we try to do it with cold water so we just pour our hot water down the drain.
- We have gone from 2 loads of laundry per week to about 8.
- We have noticed that 50 dollars no longer fills up the truck or the Civic.
- We, Amelia more than us, use 10 diapers a day.
- Leading to about 2 extra trash bags per week.
- We have to clean the cat's litter boxes. Which has nothing to do with Amelia but remains my most hated chore. Probably tied with adjusting the slip cover on the couch 10 times per week--ahhh the day that we have couches that are nice enough that they don't require covers--maybe after we get out of college.
So you might be wondering what we are going to do about the crying and the energy inefficiency. Well, we are going to pack everyone into our 20 mpg truck and drive 3.5 hours to Lake George to honor Memorial Day with Heidi's family. I am very much hoping that Amelia's performance from this morning will not be replicated in this afternoon's drive. On Monday we will send out all of the pictures from this weekend. I'm looking forward to many where cousins and aunts and uncles are holding Amelia. My arms are getting tired.
Until then...Happy Memorial Day Weekend.
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