The Kaplan House: Two steps forward, one step back

Last week Alla went on a business trip. For a day and a half, one night away from home. That left me and aunt Olya with the boys for two days, two evenings, and one night in the middle.

The first day went well and the evening went as expected. The 6 pm feeding went mostly OK - took a bit too long, as Zev was expecting boob and was resisting the bottle for a bit. The feeding took longer than planed and by the end Ben was very sleepy and rather cranky. Yet the routine was followed: reading, changing, singing - even if singing was accompanied by a crying Ben. To beds they went and after a few minutes all was quiet for a while.

And quiet it remained until about 3:45 am. Ben piped up, received the pacifier, and was asleep in two seconds - as planned, this time. The next noise came from Zev, definitively, at 5:45. Shrotly, Ben was up too and it was clear they were over the sleeping thing for the night. The boys were changed and fed, and were playing downstairs under Shawna's supervision. Off I went to bed to get my last half hour of sleep.

That night Alla returned and routine resumed. The remarkable thing was - for once, no one ate from 7 pm to 6 am. The same happened the following night and I became cautiously optimistic that the night feeding was done with. Don't get me wrong, there was still getting up to do, and playing with / feeding around 6 am, but still - no feeding from 7 pm to 6 am was something. I started thinking of visiting the gym again.

The "good life" lasted for two more days. Last night Zev cried around 10:30 pm and in rushed Alla, to comfort him. Which prompted Zev to cry harder and Alla to feed him. I came in, hissing that feeding Zev was the wrong move, as was picking him up. Alla relented, and the only-partly-fed Zev went back to bed. Now, he was furious - the boob was given, then taken away. Zev yelled indignantly and woke up Ben, who yelled about being woken up. Alla wanted to rush back in, but I barked that she has done rather enough for one night; I patted each screaming baby on the head, and settled in the office, listening to the yelling. Alla was crying while listening to the same duet in the bedroom. About 7 minutes later both performers were asleep. Naturally, at 3 am Zev woke up and was fed again. The monitor remained on, so was treated to the pre-feeding yelling in full. I walked into the room, hissed some more about the intelligence of feeding Zev twice in one night and setting us back in sleep training, and went back to bed. I remember being woken up at least one more time after that. Then it was 6:15, crying was coming from the monitor, and it was my turn to take care of the babies, so Alla could sleep in peace a little.

By 6:20 I was entering the babies' room. With a headache, in a foul mood, pissed at myself for being in this situation and at Alla for setting us back from four straight nights of no night feeding. The changing-playing-feeding Ben routine followed. Some time after 7 aunt Olya arrived to take over the duties and Alla came down to feed Zev. I went to clean up, computing work lateness with and without an assembled sandwich. Just as I was leaving, I did one more thing to share my Monday morning cheer. I freely shared with Alla that, on balance, I indeed A*B*S*O*L*U*T*E*L*Y L*O*V*E my life, every single day of it.

With this, here are some more cute pictures of babies. Welcome to the Kaplan House.