Week 17 – The Worst Week Ever or How Ellie Lost Her Groove Again

Warning: If you are one of the many readers of this blog who is about to have a child or is even thinking about having a child, skip this entry. Also, if you are someone who finds lack of sleep one of the worlds’ true terrors, skip this week. I wish we, as her parents, could have skipped this week.

This week we learned that Karma hates us. Or that Karma does not appreciate it when you brag about something. In many blogs past, even in the ones that talked about how bad things were, Meredith and I always ended on a note of hope and something that basically said, ‘we are so happy!’ This week, we are not happy. Let’s start with Monday night and we’ll just walk you through the suffering of this week as it progressed. Hopefully it will be cathartic. (For us, not you the reader.)

Monday night Ellie woke several times. But it wasn’t this crying of a colicky baby it was sort of a general whine, kind of like after you’ve been beaten up and you’re lying there feeling every ache and pain. Well, Meredith and I took turns trying to sooth and rock our tired baby back to sleep. I think we got four hours that night. The problem wasn’t getting her to sleep, she was tired and I could get her to fall asleep in my arms – but the transfer to the crib. As much as I love to have a sweet little baby sleeping in my arms, there is no greater frustration than having her wake screaming just as you’re tip toeing it out of her room. Ugh.

The next day, determined to reverse this trend of sleeplessness, I convinced Meredith that I should try to give our angel formula again. For those of you that don’t know, formula takes longer for the baby’s stomach to break down so they tend to sleep better, think of that after Thanksgiving dinner feeling… oooh yeah. Well, we are limited in our formula choices (there area only two formulas that are not milk or soy based) and, as you may recall, the one formula Ellie took last week gave her horrible, painful gas. So this time we made a switch (back to the one that she rejected for several weeks) and hoped beyond hope. Now, men, if you’ve never fed a baby, it’s a glorious thing. Women don’t tell us what a pleasant experience it is. You’re nurturing her, you’re soothing her, and you’re ever so gently lulling her into the comfort and safety of your arms. It’s quite majestic. And as predicted, Ellie slept pretty well for us that night. Unfortunately, it was the calm before the storm.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty much nightmares. Ellie was completely miserable. Our usually strong healthy baby wouldn’t stand on her legs, was lethargic, gassy, painfully whiney and to top it all off, had pretty much stopped sleeping. That cold I was keeping at bay came full force since I was no longer sleeping either; my body got really sick. Meredith, usually sweet and loving was snippy and grumpy – so take that and add in sick and you have the level at which I had reached. The Molloy family was miserable. Not to mention that Ellie had not pooped since Tuesday, which just added to our worries Probably too much information here, but this is for posterity so we’re honest… she is usually a champ when it comes to bowel movements so we were especially worried when by Friday, still nothing.

On Friday morning, Meredith had a half day at work, so we decided to just keep Ellie out of daycare for the day and take her to the doctor to see if she had any advice for us. That morning we took Ellie’s temperature for the first time… rectally. Yikes.

I read the instructions, then we covered the thermometer in the little plastic thingy and covered that in lubricant. We put Ellie at a ninety degree angle and um, well, looked at her tiny butt, looked at the seemingly huge thermometer, looked at each other and thought, ‘there is no way we can fit, let alone violate our baby in such a manner.’ However, after rereading the instructions, we ventured forward, far more traumatized than Ellie. Thankfully, she did not have a temperature. That morning, Ellie continued to be miserable, the poor thing, over tired, cranky and constipated.

Once the doctor’s appointment was made, Ellie and I continued our morning together. Then something wonderful happened. Ellie pooped! T’was the biggest, baddest poop if ever there was a poop. After which, she smiled and smiled and cooed and giggled and when I had her at the doctor’s office, she was this perfect smiley happy baby. Ordinarily, I’d be happy about this, except in the eyes of the doctor, not only was I a crazy first time father, but I was a liar too!

The doctor suggested that she may have changed her sleeping habits because she’s a smart baby who has figured out a way to spend more time with her parents. Or her little mind is racing during this important developmental phase and it is preventing her from sleeping soundly. Or she could be in the beginning stages of teething. There were lots of theories, but no concrete reason that she is not sleeping and no magical way to get her to start again.

So, we have resigned ourselves to the fact that Ellie no longer sleeps through the night. We have tried everything. We have let her cry it out, cuddled her, rocked her, bounced her, put a humidifier in her room, bought a noise maker, swaddled her, swaddled her with one arm out, stopped swaddling her, put her to bed earlier, put her to bed later,..none of it seems to matter. She lost her groove. Don't get me wrong, since the Big Poo of 2006, she has been a complete delight during the day. She is chatty and smiley and more fun than ever! She's just not sleepig well at night. We now just expect that she will wake up 2-3 times every night. And that it will take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours to get her to go to sleep again. It’s frustrating. It’s exhausting. But it’s the way things are. Just hopefully not forever.

Week - 16 Back to the Future or How Ellie Got Her Groove Back

There are some things in this world that you can predict. The sun will rise, (although somedays are cloudy) the Philadelphia sports teams will break your heart (especially if their name starts with an 'F' and ends with a 'lyers') and Ellie will sleep through the night. Wait! Hold that last one. It turns out that just when you get comfortable with something, just when you can count on it, everything changes. This is a VERY important lesson about being a parent, so I will repeat it; just when you’re sure something will occur, it changes.


As loyal readers of this blog will already know, we have been blessed with a sleeper. Since around week 12 Ellie has been sleeping consistently EVERY NIGHT for nine to ten hours (when we moved her into her own room). While I understand that this pattern has only been going on for four weeks, and that doesn’t sound like a long time, I will put it in perspective for you. That is 25% of the time that Ellie has been alive, that’s like 7.5 of my adult years or 23.5 in Mel Wolfe years. (Sorry about that Pop.)


So for almost 23.5 years Ellie has been sleeping through the night. And then POW! While I was in California for our friends Meredith and Ryan’s wedding, Meredith put Ellie down for the night, confident she would sleep the night through as usual and around 12:30 Ellie wakes with ferocious hunger. Meredith thought that this was a simple one-time hiccup. Unfortunately, our little sleeper proceeded to wake up every four hours each night, right on through Sunday. On Monday night, we thought clearly this wasn’t just missing Daddy, this was something more – things had changed. Finally, on Tuesday night, we had decided that it must be that she had gotten used to bottles at daycare and now wasn’t adept enough at extracting the milk from Meredith and therefore was going to bed hungry. We crossed our fingers and I gave her formula and… it worked! Not only did she finally agree to take formula (sleepy haze maybe?) she also slept through the night again and the next morning she was her happy smiley self. Except that she wasn’t. She was sad and fussy and wouldn’t even hold my hand on the bus on the way to daycare. She proceeded to become rather constipated and stayed fussy throughout the day. Wednesday and Thursday were like mirror images of each other – formula right before bed, sleep through the night and bad day for Ellie.

Meredith and I quickly decided that this wasn’t worth it. I mean we love sleep, but not at the expense of our little girl's happiness. It was just like the days when Meredith was still enjoying milk, cheese and soy. Ellie was Ms. fussing cranky-pants. So, we said forget it on Thursday night, and decided not to give her any formula, dreading the sleepless night that would surely follow. I know what you’re thinking; “Meredith and Marty are so benevolent, so sacrificing for their child, surely she will sleep for them now.” (See how parenthood changes you from selfish to selfless?) Well, our selflessness paid off. She slept like a champ! Right through the night! Do we understand it? No. Do we care? No. Was it the formula? Who cares. It got her back on track and we are all happy again.

In fact, despite a very busy weekend - we went down to Maryland on Friday night for our friends Michael and Dawn’s wedding on Saturday - our sweet little girl slept like a rock. At Oma and Opa’s house, we carried our sleeping angel in her carseat, set up the pack-n-play and waited for her to wake up – at which time, we (Meredith) would feed her and put her down for the night. That morning, we went into the room she was sleeping in and had to wake her up! In the carseat! Where she had slept for ten hours! On the drive back home, she once again fell asleep (at 8:38 PM)– and as one should never wake a sleeping baby, we put her in the nursery still in the carseat and once again she was awakened by her sweet mother. At 8:28 AM!!!! 12 hours a new world’s record…for Ellie anyway. We'll see how tonight goes. I think we will be apprehensive for a while. We still love sleep, all sacrificing aside. The only constant is change and our family motto since we first got pregnant has been: Be Flexible.

Note about the wedding: It was Ellie’s first and apologies to the beautiful Bride who looked amazing, but we feel very bad that approximately half of her wedding photos will be of various guests holding, talking and making faces at the cutest little girl there. Ellie was awake for far too many hours, stimulated by so many new faces, sounds and smells. She was a total champ – sweet and cooing the day away. From this Dad’s view, it was one of the best days ever. After being away from her last weekend, and working all week I was accused of hogging her. I was. I admit it. She’s mine and I’m going to soak in every moment I can with her. It was great. She was great. If only the stinkin’ Flyers would win, life would be perfect.

Week 15 - Home Alone

This week, Marty ventured to California to represent the Molloy clan at our dear friends wedding (congratulations Meredith and Ryan!) so for the long weekend, it's just us girls. The decision for us to stay behind was a long and hard one, but the more we thought about it, taking a 3 1/2 month old on a 5 hour plane ride to a place with a 3 hour time difference for 4 days just seemed like a bad idea. And logistically, a breastfeeding mom can't go anywhere without her baby without spending an obnoxious amount of time with her pump. So, sadly, we had to send Marty to sunny So Cal without us.

Thus, I am getting a glimpse into the life of the single mom, and I have to say, hats off to single moms! It's really exhausting to do it all on your own. Marty is a wonderful person and a wonderful husband, so it comes as no surprise to me that he is also a wonderful father. But I guess it is possible that I sometimes take all that wonderful for granted. I grew up in a house where the chores were equally divided - there was never any "womans work" or "mans work" so I just figured that that is how things are. Long gone are the days when the wife does all the child rearing and the dad brings home the bacon and pretty much just interacts with the kids on major holidays. These days, it's common for husbands and wives, dads and moms to share responsibilities and to not be boxed in to typical gender roles. But maybe it's not as common as I assumed. Perhaps those days aren't as far off as I thought.

Several people have actally asked me "Does Marty change diapers?" to which I answer "Um...yeah" and then they say things like "That's so great!" or "What a great father!" Yes, he is a good father; a great father. But because he changes diapers? Of couse he changes her diapers! She poops a lot! And where is my pat on the back for changing diapers? I bet no one has ever asked Marty if I ever change Ellie's diaper. He's not a great father because he changes diapers. He is a great father because he rolls up his sleeves and does everything. And he loves Ellie with every ounce of his being and would do anything for her. So it got me thinking, are all fathers not as involved and active as Marty?

Sadly, I think that the answer is no. I recently asked two different new dads how they were enjoying parenthood, to which they both similarly replied with a very weak "It's ok" and "my wife does pretty much everything at this point". I was floored! If you ask Marty how he likes fatherhood, he would brighten up, grin from ear to ear and then ramble for hours about how strong and beautiful and fantastic Ellie is and how much he loves being a dad. Now, you may be saying to yourself, Marty is that enthusiastic about everything, but truly he has taken on the role of father wholeheartedly, loves it, and does it really, really well.

Raising Ellie is a responsiblity that Marty and I happily share. We both change diapers, wake up in the middle of the night, rock her to sleep, play with her and so on. With him gone for the weekend, it makes me realize how lucky I am have to a partner that shares the responsibilties that come with having a child...because there are many! And it's just not as much fun when you're doing it alone.

Week 14 - Back to Work

This was by far the most difficult week of parenthood for us so far. This week I went back to work and we therefore had to entrust the life and wellbeing of our precious child to, essential strangers. After spending the last 13 weeks with Ellie, pretty much 24/7, leaving her was excrutiating. The longest I have ever been away from her prior to this week was 4 hours. And every time either of us has gone somewhere without her in the past, we have left in the loving care of her grandparents or each other. So even though Marty has been going to work and leaving Ellie for months now, this was his first week having to part with her when she was with someone other than family.

Luckily, Ellie's Oma and Opa watched her on my first day back (Tuesday) so I only had to worry about separation anxiety that first day. Work was hard, especially since everyone kept asking about her and wanting to see pictures. It's hard to ignore the fact that you are missing your child when you're being forced to talk about her and look at her picture all day! It wasn't until Wednesday, her first day at daycare, that I had to worry about my separation anxiety and her well-being.

Fortunately for me, Marty was the one to drop her off at daycare, so he got to refresh his separation anxiety, which he had gotten used to over the past few months. It was quite an adventure for daddy and daughter, as they took the bus to daycare (marking Ellie's first trip on public transportation! Is she a city-girl or what?!) When they got there, Daddy was stressed out and nervous and Ellie was all smiles and coos and apparently didn't seem to care if she was being held by a large, strange woman or her parents. A good thing for Ellie, but a hard thing for dad! I spent most of the day at work watching the clock, trying to calculate how early would be too early to call to check up on her. I don't want to be one of those crazy obsessive parents that calls every twenty minutes, but it took all the strength I had not to do it! I somehow held out until 11am and I got a resunding "Elise is doing great!"

I left work about an hour early on day one and arrived at the daycare to find Elise sound asleep and completely content. That was until I woke her up trying to get her in the car seat and she started crying. The report from her first day was good. She had no problems taking the bottle or taking a nap. She even did some lovely artwork! I was beginning to think that she could really care less about the whole being left with strangers thing. She showed her true colors when we got home though, as she spent most of the evening trying to nurse and would scream bloody murder if I even thought about putting her down for two seconds.

Day two went similarly well. Daddy and Ellie had a fun bus trip, Daddy was all nerves and Ellie was all smiles, and I left work an hour early to pick up a baby that was perfectly content. Again, from the second we got home, she didn't want to do anything but nurse and cuddle.

Day three, Friday, did not go as smoothly. Our transportation plan was complicated by heavy rain and a public transportation problem that resulted in Marty holding a diaper bag, a backpack, a baby in a carseat and an umbrella for 40 minutes waiting for the bus. She eventually fell asleep, but woke abruptly when the door to the daycare slammed behind them and she was much less of a happy camper for her dropoff. Then when I picked her up and took her home, she not only wanted to nurse constantly, but also apparently wanted to keep us in her sights to make sure we wouldn't leave her because she refused to go to down for the night for the first time in weeks. We ended up having to rock and soothe her for hours, like in the "old days" and she eventually drifted off.

The best thing about going back to work is the weekend! Being apart from my baby makes the time that we do have together that much more exciting and meaningful. I no longer take the time I have with her for granted and have spent the entire weekend doing "nothing" with Ellie and loving every minute of it.