Two videos of Jack laughing that should appease the restless natives

Last night after his dinner I thought Jack may have had a dirty diaper, so I leaned in and gave a little sniff. Jack seemed to think that this was a playful move on my part and that sniffling was hilarious. Hence these two adorable videos were born. They showcase very nicely how instantaneous and brightening his smile is. I went through the video frame by frame on my camera (I think it takes something like 30 frames a second), and it's literally a one-frame conversion from boredom to massive grin. It looks scripted! The videos also do a good job of demonstrating how his laugh has already evolved into a more toddler-like one from the tiny baby giggles that I posted back in October. And the second one shows how Jack's speech is developing--this week he's all about making "g" sounds, as you can tell by the "hu-guuu" he makes during a break in laughing. The less attractive part of them is that at the end of the second one I start our kissing pig game and thus a few snorts are included.

From the messy background (laundry everywhere) you may think you have an inkling that this has been a rough week, but let me assure you, you have no idea. Sunday night Jack woke up about 5-6 times. Monday night it was up to 7 or 8, including a particularly bad screaming wake from 4 until 4:30 that also involved a disastrous diaper change. Tuesday night was sheer torture as our little angel baby woke up at least 20 times.

I am sooooo not exaggerating. Literally every 20 minutes from 11 until 2 and then at least every hour from 4 until 7. Oh, and there were at least two wake ups between his 9 o'clock bedtime and 11 when I laid down. I worked really hard (and succeeded pretty darn well) at doing the responsible mommy thing of gently trying to teach Jack to self-soothe. That is to say I attempted to distinguish between "I'm having trouble getting back to sleep" fusses (2-3 individual short and sporadic vocalizations in a waking episode that lasts up to maybe a minute total) and "I'm scared/I need you" wails (crying that lasts longer than that and gets louder with decreasing time between each cry). The problem is mainly that the desire to give Jack the opportunity to learn to put himself back to sleep and the desire to stop a full blown tantrum often conflict--go in to help too soon when it's only a fussing and he's deprived of any easy learning opportunity, but go in a few seconds too late when it's a genuine cry and it turns into a true wake up that takes 20 minutes rather than 2 minutes to put him back to sleep. It sounds fairly easy when I put it in writing that way, but it is not all that easy at 1:30 in the morning when you've already been up 5 times and just want the baby to go back to sleep NOW!

But Jack's 7 a.m. wakeup was different in that it was followed by a massive throwing up episode that happened just as I walked up to his crib. I made it in time for the frightening full-body convulsions that precede baby vomiting. Scared me to death, in part because it was completely unexpected. So I left a message for Dr. Hay requesting an appointment and slept on the guest bed with Jack on my chest for a few more hours while Ben went back to sleep and then got ready for work (the benefit of working for a New York-based company in London is that because of the 5 hour time zone difference Ben doesn't usually have to be at work until 9:30 or 10--the detriments, well, there are many). All morning Jack was really lethargic and looked kind of shaky and tired, which I'm sure he was.

Dr. Hay squeezed us in over his lunch break--dear, dear man--and said Jack might have the beginnings of a stomach virus that has been going around so he gave me some tips about handling that possibility. But by that time Jack was already looking and acting much more like himself. We took it easy the rest of the day, and last night was slightly better with only 8 or so wakes.

Today when I called Dr. Hay's secretary to give him an update on how Jack was doing (as Dr. Hay requested), I asked if he could recommend a sleep specialist, because Jack's sleeping is still slightly out of control. It's gone downhill since Mom and Dad left, despite the fact that I've continued putting him to sleep in his crib rather than in my arms and that we've implemented a great bedtime routine. Even with a break at Christmas, I just can't deal with teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown (more on that in a post to come about postpartum depression, possibly going up this weekend) based on whether or not I'm able to sleep each night. So I figured I'd just ask whether there's some sort of equivalent of a sleep clinic for babies.

I got something better than that. I got Andrea Grace. I called and talked to her briefly before realizing who I was dealing with, and she sounded nice enough on the phone when she was apologizing and saying that she was already on Christmas vacation and couldn't see us until January. But it was when I read the first line of her website that she became the new hope on which I've pinned all my dreams of sleep. It reads, "My approach to sleep problems is designed for those loving parents who want their children to sleep well but cannot bear to leave them alone to cry." Ah, heavenly, the benefit of a sleeping baby and no crying it out. Then I started noticing that she has a book (I've already ordered it from Amazon) and interviews with big time news organizations mentioned. Then I saw among the recommendations that not only was a quote in from Dr. Hay (nice to have that extra little bit of endorsement), but also a few from minor British celebrities (who I'm sure Brits would consider major celebs) and one from Nick Hornby! As in Nick Hornby the author of such masterpieces as High Fidelity (one of my top five all time favorite movies--well, not really, but it's good), Fever Pitch, and About a Boy. Anyone who has written books that have been turned into movies starring such diverse and famous actors as John Cusack, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jimmy Fallon, and Hugh Grant is amazing in my opinion.

At any rate, what I was getting to before being interrupted by a flood of praise for a somewhat minor contemporary author is that apparently Andrea Grace is the newer, gentler Baby Whisperer, complete with celebrity clients. We'll see, but my hopes and expectations are now stellar.

Silly me, I should have realized that a pediatrician associated with The Portland, a five star hotel that also happens to be one of the premier birthing hospitals in the world (if you go to the website, I highly recommend clicking on the Web Babies section--guaranteed to brighten your day even more), wouldn't refer me to just anyone. But wow. Sometimes I forget that in London we're moving in a different sphere than we did growing up. That realization usually hits me when I remember that my best friend is going back to work as a top executive for the European branch of a major world back after her year long maternity leave ends in January or that my husband's salary puts us in one of the top US-income brackets or that Ben and I are at least five years younger than our next-oldest friends. It's just a very different experience, and I got another reminder of that today.

Tomorrow I hope I get the chance to post about our Christmas preparations and put up pictures of Jack at Ben's office's family Christmas party, which is tomorrow afternoon, but no promises.

Tonight is already not looking so good--in the first three hours of his sleep (usually the most calm) I've already had to resettle Jack four times.