Hamoud! (Cutie)

Avi is almost 3 months old. When I look at his newborn photos, I feel weepy. When did he turn into this big baby with loads of personality (and the occasional gut-wrenching screaming episode)?

We remain nowhere near any kind of schedule. I wonder if I should be more diligent about that. We sort of have consistency with our evening routine. Bath, then nurse to sleep. It's been working and he's been sleeping pretty well. Leeor, supportive as ever, wondered aloud last night about start ing the routine--it was around 7, when we usually start the tub. Silly me, I had an agenda. I wanted to make a nice meal (filet mignon) for us. Open the bottle of South African wine we'd been saving. I thought Avi could hang a bit longer and we'd do bath/bedtime after we ate. Sigh. Guess what happened?

Our beautiful boy screamed and screamed through his bath. It was awful. We kept saying, what should we do? We plunged ahead, wrapped him up in a towel, dressed him in pjs. More screaming. I freaked out. I think other moms understand what it feels like to hear your baby scream. It feels like the worst kind of torture.

There we were; Avi crying in pjs, me standing naked while Leeor got my robe, me starting to cry. Then he stopped crying. Leeor took him while I continued to cry. I felt so used up, so spent, so helpless and inadequate. Leeor was so wonderful. He said he finally realized how hard my job is. He kept asking what could he do to help?

I sat on the bed and nursed Avi (the continuation of said bedtime routine) and fretted that now he had negative associations with bathtime (I mean, how neurotic can I get?) while Leeor kindly folded all the clean laundry that I'd tossed on the bed earlier in the day.

Of course, Avi fell asleep by 9. And the filet mignon was perfect. Leeor and I drank our pinotage and watched (of all things) Rosemary's Baby. He made a fire. He cleaned the kitchen. Avi slept until 3 AM, then nursed efficiently and dropped back into a deep sleep til 6:45. Then again til 8.

And here we are today, a little wiser, maybe, but I doubt it.