It's not all gloom and doom

Thanks a million for all your comments below; they were extremely helpful (as was the phone call, N.). In addition to all the virtual support, I talked with a woman at the new moms' group about her son's sleep habits -- he's nine weeks old and was born two weeks after his due date. His sleep patterns are very similar to Ess', and that was incredibly reassuring. I think our expectations were a bit too high. And so knowing that this is just the way things are right now, that there probably isn't much we can do except to roll with it in the best humor possible, is actually very helpful.

Yesterday, we took Ess on a little hike at a beautiful state park on the water. It wasn't the longest or most strenuous hike, but we were out on a gorgeous day, and that was good. D and I had a chance to talk about the way things have been going between us -- I've been snappish and impatient, he's been reluctant to do things "wrong" with Ess and so has slowed down on attempting to soothe her when I've got her -- and that was also good. Here he is wearing the Maya Wrap Phantom sent us; he's spent the last several days getting comfortable with it in preparation for his single-dad time on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.



And of course on this outing little Ess had the most violent poopy diaper blowout in recent memory. Here she is after an al fresco diaper and wardrobe change.