There’s a Person in There

It has only been 4 days since my last report on my son, but he seems to have changed a lot during that time.

When we brought him home, he was a jiggly ball of flesh that pooped and yelled. There was a little more to him than that, but not a whole lot more. He wasn’t totally incapable of thinking. He was smart enough to decide he liked bottles better than his mother. He did have a very limited number of modes, though. Angry mode. Hungry mode.

Actually, I think that covers it.

This month, everything changed. At first, we got glimmers of smiles. Now, he has periods of obvious, overwhelming happiness. This is nice, because in the beginning, he didn’t seem to have much in the way of positive emotions. He has also developed a very strong attachment to his mom.

I guess it makes sense that newborns aren’t the most positive people on Earth. It doesn’t do a newborn a great deal of good to tell the world he’s happy, but if he’s upset, everyone around him will try to fix his problem.

His negativity was a test of our patience. You want to be upbeat with your newborn, but it can be trying when you’re getting somewhere between zero and 4 hours of sleep a night and every time you interact with him, he screams as loud as he can, sometimes for quite a while. When the positivity starts to show up, you feel weight dropping off your shoulders. You realize how hard you were working, contributing virtually everything to the relationship and absorbing the very real pain of loud crying.

He screamed when he was hungry. He screamed when we changed him. He screamed when we bathed him. He screamed while he tried to poop. He screamed for other reasons we never figured out.

When a baby is screaming, you feel pressed to fix him, but often, you don’t succeed. Repeated failure leads to a feeling of powerlessness, like the feeling you get when you try to contact an airline for customer support. It’s discouraging, but you can’t quit.

At least with a baby, you know the problem isn’t that an entire industry is designed to cheat you.

Here’s an interesting thing I never thought about until this week: adults lose their voices, but babies don’t. They keep right on going. If I screamed as much as a baby, I’d lose my voice in an hour. How do they do it?

Earlier this week, we noticed that he was smiling a lot more than he had the week before. Yesterday and the day before, things really ramped up. Now he lights up with joy. His whole face shines with it. And we are finding out how to make it happen.

His favorite thing is the diaper game. You flop him onto the changing pad, and while he’s lying there, you take a new diaper and put it over his face. Then you pull it away. Then you put it back. Then you pull it away. He thinks this is the greatest activity there is. You put the diaper on a face that looks moderately happy, and when you pull it away, the smile is wide, the eyes are shining, and he is wiggling in ecstasy.

It also works with other objects, but right now, the diaper is king.

Yesterday, he started whacking his hanging toys in a much more vigorous, prolonged, and determined way. He must have gone half an hour the last time.

He has started trying to talk. It’s not impressive. He’s not ready to give elocution lessons. But it’s definitely an effort to speak. No words, obviously, but he is trying to express himself.

He thinks his mom is the greatest. She started spending more time with him in order to deal with some feeding issues, so they ended up lying in bed together a lot. He can’t get enough.

His new thing is the mom alarm. He sleeps next to her with one hand against her side to make sure she’s always there. If she breaks contact, he wakes up and and lets her know how he feels about it.

Their closeness has caused a problem. He wants to sleep with her all the time. I don’t always know what’s happening at night, because I conk out and sleep with a recently-developed dogged determination. I learned she has been letting him lie next to her all night.

Babies are not supposed to sleep in their parents’ beds. This is a new rule. New by my standards. They sometimes get crushed and suffocated. Also, adult beds are softer than baby beds, and it is believed the lack of support can cause crib death by making it harder for babies to breathe.

You’re not supposed to let babies sleep on their stomachs. You can’t even let them sleep on their sides. Because our son has been sleeping with Mom, he has gotten used to sleeping on his side. He also rolls onto his stomach to sleep.

I didn’t know this was happening, or I would have done something.

Now he hollers when we put him in the bassinet, and regardless of where he is, he may try to roll over. His mother wants to let him be, because moms spoil their kids. I have to be bad cop parent and put everything right. Now Mom is the parent who makes life cushy and cozy, and Dad is the guy who shows up to ruin everything.

We have to put him in the bassinet from now on, except when everyone is awake, and he is going to yell until he realizes he’s not going to get his way. Mom thinks it’s bad to let him yell. Dad knows it’s important for him to learn that yelling won’t always get him what he wants. He has to learn he can’t have everything his way all the time. Otherwise, he will sleep however he wants, and we could wake up childless one morning.

Mushy thinkers believe babies this young can’t be spoiled, but it’s very obvious they can, so I pay no attention to them. My son can’t be allowed to run the house. He can’t be encouraged in manipulating us.

When my sister was tiny, she used to tell adults off. She would put her hands on her hips and lay into them. The family thought it was funny, and they encouraged her. She became a hopeless brat and manipulator.

She always have to have her way. If you don’t do what she asks, she makes you miserable until you do, even if it’s something unimportant. No one can stand her. She has no real friends. Both of her parents said God should take her if she wasn’t going to change. She lost her law license, and she will never get it back. She has a felony conviction, as well as some felonies that were hushed up. She was disinherited more than once. That’s what can happen when you let your soft heart put your child in charge.

When a baby is very, very young, it’s important to get up and act when there is trouble, and sometimes its cries indicate real problems. This conditions you to get up and bounce around the house like a frantic pinball every time the baby isn’t happy. That mindset has to be recognized and destroyed. It’s not appropriate after the first few weeks. Eventually, your child has to get up and bounce around when YOU make noise. Your child has to fear you.

The “milestone” guidelines are not always helpful. They say a baby should not sleep on his back until he’s a year old. They say he should not sleep on his back until he’s at least 7 months old. They also say he should not sleep on his back until he can roll onto his stomach and back onto his back by himself. Who is right?

I think this kid will be rolling over both ways, at will, within a month. He is extremely strong and vigorous. His neck is like a steel spring. He kicks like a mule. The only thing preventing him from walking is his inability to balance.

He keeps exceeding expectations. I don’t know whether this is normal. I didn’t know it could happen. It must be a big blessing, but here we are, first-child parents, tabula rasa, and it’s one more challenge we have to figure out without much help.

What do we do when he is fully able to decide how he wants to sleep? We can’t stand next to the bassinet from dusk till dawn, turning him over repeatedly. Is it okay to tie his hands? No idea. If he can roll over, and he’s only 4 months old, should we let him do what he wants?

We have to find out.

Personally, I have doubts about the whole crib death approach. My best guess is that demons cause it, and medical science will never admit that. I have seen demons, Yeshua has visited me, and I have received miracles, so my outlook is different.

It’s very common for demons to attack people in their sleep. For some reason, demons love to stand beside beds or at the foot or head. It’s common for people to wake up and see them. I’ve seen a lot of them. My mother saw one. You probably know people who have seen them.

One thing they love is to shut off your air and paralyze you. When they do this, you may not be able to move, speak, or breathe. I have never been unable to breathe during these events, but I have had a very hard time speaking. Sometimes when these attacks occur, you will see demons in your dreams.

Many years ago, in a dream, I saw a beautiful young woman. I asked her who she was, and she said, “I’m a demon.” She pointed her right hand at me, and I could barely speak. I don’t remember how I worked it out. At least she told the truth.

I’ve told about the funniest demon visit I received. It happened here in this house. I woke up and saw a strange shape over the bed. I can’t recall exactly how it looked, and it wasn’t clearly defined, but I could tell it was feminine. It arched over the bed like a crane.

Demons don’t scare me at all, but I really hate them. When I saw this thing, I was furious. Not fully aware of what I was doing, I said, “Get out, BITCH.”

I doubt Yeshua ever said that to a demon.

I think crib death is caused by spirits that overcome weak and/or unprotected babies. I don’t think it could happen here. Since my wife and I have been together physically, spirits have not come to the bed.

This boy is developing fast, so I have to get on top of things. I thought I had a long time to prepare the house. Maybe I don’t. Kitchen knives, chemicals, tools…what if he starts getting into stuff next month?

It’s nice to see his systems come online, even if we’re not ready for all of it. He smiles when we change him. He likes his baths. He can see us and follow motion at least a couple of yards off. We’re getting a much-needed return on our investment. It will be great when everything is operational.

I just heard some squawking. Looks like someone is up and ready to give orders and present demands. Maybe if I stay in here just a little longer and stay really quiet, Mom will change him before I go check on him.