Survivor - One man, two babies, one week.

From BambiniPt2

Barbara has gone to France for business. I have begun a one week looking after two babies by myself. My first lesson came first thing Monday morning (don't they always)

Last night I put the two babies to bed... alone. We have done this together since they were born. This is a challenge as it usually takes two of us the better part of 30 minutes to calm them down and get them to sleep.

Nico can be tough. He is heavy, strong and wants to keep going. Luca with a little gentle rocking can go to sleep quit easily.

So we began with idea #1. put them both in bed and rock both beds. That lasted about ten seconds. So to idea #2. Hold Luca and rock him in my arms while rocking Nico in his crib with my feet. Nico was out of the crib and bolting across the floor in no time.

So to idea #3. Get Luca to sleep and then work on Nico. Luca was going nicely until Nico started making a ton of noise and that woke him up. A little more persistence and I got Luca nearly asleep before I had to drop him in the bed to wrangle Nico. This woke him up

and so to Idea #4. Sit on the floor with head in hands praying they would fall asleep on their own


and so to Idea #5. Exercise extreme patience and wait for an hour until Nico has tired himself out. Mean while, rock Luca and just wait to see what happens. This did eventually work. I had to wrangle Nico with my feet a few times, but he stayed in the nursery and stood up to engage the humidifier, his new alter.

He is obsessed with the remote controls, so I give him an old one to keep him amused. His new puzzle is trying to figure out how to hit the humidifier with it so that the two fit together like other puzzles. The noise is not conducive to sleeping!

I decided to practice patience (not that I had a choice) and by some baby miracle, Luca went to sleep amid the clattering. As soon as he was well enough gone, I scooped up Nico and Viola, two sleeping babies.

Unfortunately that was not the end of it. At 2am Nico woke up for a feed, and when I put the helmet on him, he became completely awake. There is no easy way out of this. It requires at least 45mins persistent effort, usually walking a round the living room, until he calms down enough to rock him to sleep.

His former record was 90 minutes.

I rocked him for 30 mins, he was more awake than ever. I put him in bed he crawled out. I rocked him some more, nothing. So I put him back in the chair we feed him in and he just rolled over and over like an alligator with prey locked in its jaws. I tried the other chair and clambered all over it like a climbing frame. I put him the master bed. He screamed.

Yes two hours of this, 2am to 4am. Every combination and permutation you can think of I tried. We watched TV, we played, I rocked and rocked. We made a sandwich, we laughed and joked. NOTHING would get the baby back to sleep. Finally at 4am he started to show a little weakness in the struggling, so I rocked with more determination and he slooooooooooooowly went to sleep. I collapsed on the sofa covered in sweat, exhausted.



Last week my server died, on Saturday, my desktop died. Both Motherboards. This machine is my daily workhorse that has run perfectly for almost ten years. They don't sell these in stores anymore.

If I buy a new motherboard, I have to buy a new processor and memory - basically a new computer. So I fired up my old laptop and began searching for a solution. After 6hrs I was no closer. I did not want to buy a new machine but it makes little sense to put more money into this old one. So I went to bed. I woke up this morning with a great idea. I could just turn the crash course in baby wrangling into a dual project: Baby wrangling + sleep deprivation.

The babies are acting up cos mom is gone, the phone is ringing, I have a dead computer and I finally got a letter from the Doc in Dallas that has to be faxed.

It has to be faxed because Senators office deletes all attachments and will not download anything without some complex screening process that no one that works their can seem to understand or be bothered with. As a result, we have to use stone age technology. Luckily, amidst Barbara's collection of old business technology, she has a fax machine that works. The problem this morning was printing.

HP make printers that seems to require the installation of more software than is needed to run a NASA space mission. It takes about an hour of clicking and patiently watching progress bars crawl across the screen just to get the printer to print. Since my desktop is dead, I decided to use Barbara's.

It was at the exact moment that I had two babies perched on my knees, and Barbara on Skype waving to the babies (who were wondering why she became a 'flat' person where the Rhino marches around) that the printer died... bright flashing exclamation point and dead as a light pole silence.

It was a long couple of hours after that, but I did get the letter faxed to the senators office. Hopefully now they will apply a little pressure.