ll good things don’t
really come to an end for me – they just get bogged down underneath everything
else.
I’ve been back at work for almost a week now, and it’s worse than ever.
Well, to be fair, nothing has changed at my job – things are no more disorganized,
boring and unfair than they were before – but I just feel worse because
I think I’d be much more valuable at home. Maybe I flatter myself – I’m
sure my wife is doing a great job by herself during the day – but it’s
depressing, and kind of heartbreaking, to be sitting here twiddling my
thumbs, so to speak, when I could be at home with my Little One.
I’m on the verge of giving the Little One my own unofficial diagnosis
of "colic". My wife says that this doesn’t start until babies are three
weeks old, although I read an article that says it can start as early as
birth. The funny thing is that nobody is really sure what colic is.
I’ve heard it’s just a psychological reaction; I’ve also heard that it
is because of some kind of gastrointestinal irritation -- now that one
I’d believe, at least in our case, because we’ve both dealt with all kinds
of stomach problems. The poor kid probably has ulcers already (or if not,
he’ll soon get them from putting up with us). When you put him down,
he cries. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, he cries. About
ten minutes after he eats, he cries. Now it's the third one that makes
me think he has a stomach problem -- the first two have other explanations
(namely, he's scared, or he's hungry). The problem is, there's not much
we can do about it, except listen to him wail uncontrollably. There is
one upside, though -- all our neighbors, who have been screaming and pounding
and driving us nuts for months, are finally getting theirs.
I'm not saying that things are going badly -- on the contrary, we're
having a lot of fun. Even at 2:30 in the morning, when we're both
completely frazzled and exhausted, we've at times just burst into a laughing
fit. And there are other times when the Little One just looks at
you with this knowing stare that seems to say, "OK, you're the ones that
are going to take care of me for the next twenty years, and although you're
a little funny looking and you go around saying 'WHASSUUUP!' to everyone,
I think I'll keep you." But now it's time to go back into the routine
of life. And for someone who usually likes the routine, now I don't.
But I guess life goes on.
Ob-la-di, ob-la-da.
