“J’pense qu’y'a faim, ton bébé” (transl. “I think your baby must be hungry”)

This was an in-joke, of sorts, that we’ve had with other new-parents in the first months of Xavier’s life, it being the comment we’d get whenever the baby would start crying, or when we would mention his chronic crying at times (Xavier was prone to colics – in the form of stomachaches, was our theory).

Well, in relation to our latest campaign-for-full-nights, this was unfortunately true. Without picking him up, I’ve offered him a bottle in his crib the last week or so, when his crying didn’t subside with his pacifier, and he usually downs a 4oz at least once a night. He doesn’t fall asleep on it, but goes back to sleep on his own afterwards. His daytime bottles are 6oz, but 4oz is still a good night snack.

So I guess that’s that: he’s not ready yet. We’ll try again in a few months, like fv says they did with Ben.

Oh, and Xavier’s maybe-cold… we got off with a small fever two or three times, a little congestion and some whining. Not even entirely sure it was a cold, then.

PS. Sorry it’s been a while since the last couple posts: my parents have been over finishing tiling in the basement (pictures forthcoming, after I’ve done some repainting… it’ll be really nice) and we’ve visited my mom’s relatives in the Laurentides, yesterday.

From Xavier – 6e m…

Xavier’s had a little fever on Friday morning, and Saturday night too, as well as a stuffed nose. It’s not a big thing, but it might bother him a lot… or not. It’s hard to tell, until they can talk.

So yesterday night we put him to bed with some Tylenol, but he’s been waking up every 5 or 10 minutes crying, and from 11pm on, he just cried and cried. I tried and tried to get him to go back to sleep, to no avail. He quieted when I breast-fed him, drank but not much, and lay on the pillow, calm but awake… and started crying again when I put him back in bed.

Actual physical pain or psychological fear of separation? Sigh. I honestly don’t know. Except giving him some Tylenol, I can’t do much about much, in any case. But it would be good to know.

He finally went back to sleep around 1am – surprise, he slept until 6h30, drank a little and slept again until 8h30.

So now I’m not sure how much pain he’s in – might not be much – and I’m wondering should we put our efforts towards full nights on standby until he’s better. Will we notice greatly when he’s better; will teething pain take over then; is it just that he’s spoiled? I always said I don’t think they can be spoiled with affection – children come from love, and are meant to be loved – but he will need to gain autonomy in sleep, if only for his own sake.

Daddy’s taking so long to post my crawling videos, that mommy did it in the end.

She put together a little montage, complete with music and captions, which lasts not quite 3 minutes. (She’s quite smitten with the song choice, actually, she says the lyrics are perfect.)

Cat hunting
You’ll see the last third: it’s my cat hunting. It’s a new hobby of mine, which makes me really really happy. She speeded it up for replay, though, because it lasted quite a while, in truth (and she only filmed half of the real thing). Cat hunting is serious business: you have to give yourself wholeheartedly to it.

Enjoy!
- Xavier

Third night. I’m restless (we know who he gets it from; Frank’s usually asleep in seconds). Had to get up again to burn some calories in the hope of wearing myself down. Blame the sugar.

8h : Breast-fed Xavier, tried really hard not to let him fall asleep feeding, so he could fall asleep in his own bed and learn to go to sleep by himself. He was mighty drowsy and was out like a light before I was out the door.

10h, 10h30?, 11h30 : Baby cries. We wait 5 minutes now before going to see him – we’re hoping the service will get so terrible he won’t bother calling for us at some point. He goes back to sleep a couple of moments after he gets his pacifier.

12h07 : Baby cries. I wait the appropriate 5 minutes and then go in. Pacifier, plush toy, blanket. He’s still whining, so I explain softly I’ll go in the other room so he can fall asleep by himself like a big boy, and leave.
I wait five minutes – he’s still crying, but it’s a long and even whining, no panic, no tears, and then he fell quiet. I’ll go check, but I suspect he went back to sleep, and I’ll do so too.

12h35 : Baby cries, but settles down on his own while we wait 5 minutes. (Score!)

3h? : I think Xavier cried, though not loudly enough to rouse me quickly, and he settled down after a minute or so.

5h30 : Baby cries. Frank goes in after 5 minutes to give him back his pacifier. After some fussing, baby quiets down, and Frank leaves the room before he’s entirely asleep, but it seems Xavier’s fallen asleep shortly.

6h08 : Baby plays and talks in his crib. It’s daytime. A little earlier than we’d like on a Saturday, and we debate who’s going to get up. Frank does (hehe!).

All in all, a very good night, and while he’s still waking up a little too often for my taste, he quieted down two times on his own, so I still have hopes he can do this. We were going to do a 3 nights run, but it’s apparently going somewhere, and we won’t back up now and keep at it until we get it.

Haven’t been joting down my reading list, after that first transition post.

Reine de mémoire – 1. La maison d’oubli by Elisabeth Vonarburg
[French] This is the third book I read by Vonarburg, who is Guy Gavriel Kay’s translator (most times) in Québec (and maybe in France, I don’t know.) First was was “Les voyageurs malgré eux”, when I was in high school, and more recently “Chroniques du pays des mères“. Vonarburg’s stories are very slow-paced, but emcompass some very intricate world building, and delicately detailed characters.

“Chroniques du pays des mères” (literaly “Chronicles from the Land of Mothers”) is a story set in a world where some unknown event of the past has taken away a lot of the technology and history records, and promted the apparition of a disease. This has affected births, many children die at an early age, and very few males. Children are kept together and raised by gardians, instead of family, males are a despairing minority, used for their seed and generally treated like cattle, and heterosexuality is not the norm (and even discouraged!). The protagonist is a young woman destined to be head of house (a region, really) but whose revealed barennes prohibits the life she was raised for. She leaves her home, then, almost in exile, which will eventually expand her horizons and take her places she’d never imagined. It was entirely worth the read, for its reflexions and perspectives, as well as its characters.

“Reine de mémoire” is a series with children as protagonists, set in an alternative past, and it is a little hard to describe, as I’m not through it yet, and they are still in discovery mode where I’m at. Religion is a theme, gender in religion also, as well as childhood and cultures. I’m enjoying it less than ‘Le pays des mères’, but then again Vonarburg’s writing is very much glimpse by glimpse, and you usually need to get to the end of a novel before you really know what it was about.

I halted my reading of it, to cut with my Christmas gift…

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
As always, Gabaldon’s Outlander novels are compulsively readable. Very earthy, fragrant and felt, you read it for Claire and Jamie Fraser, whose story you just can’t get enough of, no matter that the first books were the best ones. I’ll admit easily the 5th installment wasn’t up to the task, but I stopped expecting the focus and excitement of the first few novels, and I’m just enjoying reading the continuation of their lives, like an interlace of short stories or as in a tv series. Yes, it’s over-the-top passion; yes, it includes maybe one or two more highly satisfying romantic rescues than entirely believable, but that’s why we love it.

Gabaldon will have to get to the war of independance in the next installment, however, otherwise the series will fade out too much. Apparently the character might hop back to Scotland next, though, which is something I’d stopped hoping for, but should prove a very good move (and we want more Lord John Grey and William storylines!). I enjoy that series so much, I felt like rereading the first installment, which is what I’m doing now instead of resuming “Reine de Mémoire”. The contrast of the character’s appearance, 30 some years ago, is very interesting upon reread.

Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay
I halted my read of ‘A Breath…’ to read Kay’s new novel, of course, even though I resisted at first. Putting aside the eagerness to read any new material by GGK, I was really lagging behind all the discussion regarding Ysabel on the BrightWeavings.com forums. The first part of Ysabel read like a vacation, all sun and fun, and even though it got more serious after the first hundred page or so, the novel itself still feels like a lighter read than earlier works from GGK. Then again, I had that feeling with ‘Last Light’, his previous book, but the novel seemed to have gained some weight with a reread – Kay always weaves his stories with layers of themes and patterns, and sometime hidden hints and false perceptions, that almost require we come back to them for full understanding. I expect it is the same with Ysabel, and the story will ground itself down and thicken on a reread. I think I liked ‘Last Light’ better, still – though I’m the first one surprised : I’d usually lean more towards ‘Ysabel’ kinds of stories, in theory. Oh well.

Jeez, and to say I just wanted to jot down my recent reads… I’m really in a writing phase (both on and offline) nowadays.

Here we go again. Second night.

8h : Breast-fed Xavier. He was still awake when I put him down. Whined a little after a couple minutes, and Frank went to give him his pacifier back. Frank says he was playing with his feet, and not likely to fall asleep soon. Didn’t hear a peep, so went to check after a while: sound asleep! How proud am I to have such a sweet little angel?

11h, 12h (and I think 12h15) : Baby cries. Pacifier and plush toy; he goes back to sleep in a flash. This is just getting a little too often.

1h : Baby cries. Pacifier and plush toy. Back to sleep.

1h10 : Baby cries. Pacifier is a no-go. Xavier just won’t stop crying and squirming, and nothing I say or do (shh-ing, head strokes, quiet talk) changes anything.
Went out of the room for 5 minutes – I’m letting him cool down.
Nothing’s changed when I go back in, if only that his screams are getting a bit more panicked and loud. I give him Tylenol, starting to suspect tooth-ache, and he quiets down instantly afterwards (there’s no way it works this fast, but it seems to have a psychological effect on Xavier). He accepts his pacifier, crushes his plush toy against his forehead and starts whining softly and going back to sleep. I’ll do so too now.

1h40 : Well, that didn’t last long, did it? I gave him 5 minutes to work it out on his own before I went in this time. Not working. Pacifier, plush toy, whispers… I even put his music on, which got his attention for 2 seconds before he started again. He’s getting very mad, too.
Asked the dad’s opinion, suggests trying a bottle of water? Alright. Xavier latches on like a drowning man on a lifesaver, but after a few tries pushes the horrible thing away with his hand.
It’s past 2h now and I’m not sure what to do.
He grows more and more panicked and high-pitched, with rhytmic wails and hiccups I’ve never heard before, and I finally break down and pick him up. He sobs and finally quiets down (not sleeping). I keep him a minute more and bring him back to his crib. He goes CRAZY and totally panics! I lean down and rest my head against his, singing his Anastasia lullaby. He swallows back big sobs and quiets down. I soften my voice slowly, replaces my hand with his plush toy and move out of the room. I’m almost through the door when he realizes and goes supersonic. I come back near him to sing, to no avail, and decide he’s probably not in pain, just wants me there. That doesn’t make me feel any better or angry against him, though.
2h20 now – he’s crying his heart out, piercing screams have turned to raw strangled sobs. I go back in after a while to place him back on his back, set his blanket and pacifier. He quiets down at last after a bit, and seems to lean towards sleep, with intervals of strong high-pitched wails, finally settling to crying still. I seem to do no good, and leave him alone another while.
2h50 now – I just went in after letting crying for a good while. I took out a warmer blanket (I don’t think that was the problem, but it seemed to be growing cold) and placed him back in it. He was hiccuping and stopped crying when I took him, but started again, panicked, when he saw I wasn’t picking him up, just moving him. Gave him pacifier and toy, he started calming down, and I started stroking cheek and forehead with a finger, shhh-ing. He settled down, closed his eyes and slowly breathed easier, allowing for the huge sudden intakes of air people take when they recover from crying a lot. He went to sleep slowly – I know he’s supposed to fall asleep by himself, but I’ll take what I get at this hour – and I tiptoed out.
Speeding to bed now. I’ll make up coherent thoughts about this episode tomorrow.

5h10 : Baby cries. Went in to plug in his pacifier. He’s a little too close to being fully awake for my taste, but after a short fussing he settles back to sleep.

6h24 : Baby cries. Morning now. Nudge Frank to take over, please, he’s getting up for work anyway. He brings the baby and I feed him. Xavier is unconceivably cheery. Day starts, and I pray for a good long naptime later this morning, so I can catch up on some shut-eye.

This wasn’t just a bad night, it was terrible. I hope I hope I hope we made progress, still. I know I shouldn’t have picked him up the once, so he would not expect me to in the future, but oh well… I never knew a sweet little angel who screamed this loud.

Day naps: Xavier went to his AM nap with a minimum amount of fuss, and slept deeply for two hours (and a much needed nap for me, too). Had a little fever when he woke up, though, and the fear of pain being behind last night’s tantrum came back just a little. Sent to bed early (he was whining about everything) for his PM nap, he cried a lot but finally slept for an hour or so.