M&M Update

As promised, I’d like to take this opportunity to give you all a brief update on the goings ons of The Queen and M&M. M&M has been with us for eight weeks now and is twelve weeks old. She remains one of, if not, the sweetest, most contented babies I’ve ever come across. She weighs in at a little over twelve pounds now. She’s starting to give us real smiles as opposed to gas induced smirks.

Since I no longer work from home, The Queen is the primary care giver during the day. I get the night shift. A typical day for us goes something like this:

6:00 to 6:30 AM (depending on when I got to bed the night before) – the alarm goes off

6:00/6:30 to 7:00/7:30 AM – I take care of my morning constitutionals and ablutions. M&M has a knack for waiting until I am right in the middle of important negotiations concerning water rights/meditations on the spirituality of proper elimination while on the toilet to make it known that she is, in fact, awake and in need of nourishment. This necessitates rushing through the required paperwork in order to get M&M a bottle before she wakes up the whole neighborhood. While she is content in most respects, she will not suffer to miss a meal for long without proper exercise of her well developed vocal capabilities.

Interesting little side tidbit here: on two occasions now (once for The Queen and once for me), we have heard M&M call across the house in a loud and clear “MAAAAmaaaaaa” while we were mid bottle warming. We both did double takes…did we hear that right? I’m sure it’s only a coincidence at this point; but, who knows, perhaps we are taking care of Einstein reincarnated.

7:00/7:30 AM – After insuring that The Queen has what she needs to take over with M&M which usually means insuring they are both tucked back in their respective bed covers after the morning feeding, I give them both a gentle kiss goodbye before heading out to play in the traffic.

What happens between 7:30 AM and about 8:00 PM varies greatly depending on what’s on the schedule. So far, I’m at work from about 8:30 AM until 5:00 PM more or less before once again taking my life into my hands and battling traffic (vehicular weaponry really should be legalized…just sayin’).

The Queen and M&M’s activities depend in large part on whether there is a scheduled doctor’s or CPS visit. M&M is supposed to have a court ordered, supervised visit with her bio parents once a week at the CPS offices. I say supposed to because her bio parents have not been terribly consistent in making the visits. I haven’t counted, but my sense is that they are batting about 50% so far. When The Queen is not beholden to doctors or CPS, she likes to take M&M out and about for various activities. One time, it was story time at the Barnes & Noble bookstore near my office. Sometimes, it’s a walk in the stroller. Frequently, it’s clothes shopping at nice resale shops around the area (The Queen can’t bring herself to shop retail which is fine with me and my wallet). Last night, it was my middle niece’s high school band concert followed by dinner with the family at which M&M was fought over and passed around like a bong at a Pink Floyd concert.

Whenever we wind up back at home, it’s back to Daddy Hawk time. I take back over the bottle and diaper duties. There is usually snuggle time on the reclining love seat in the TV room (read – she falls asleep on my chest causing me to fall asleep). She gets another bottle at about midnight give or take a few minutes.

Most nights, she is waking up at around 3:30 or 4:00 AM looking for a bottle, diaper or both. It depends on how awake I am as to whether we make it back to bed/crib or resume our snuggle time positions on the love seat.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I would like to solicit some extra special prayers this week as the first court status conference regarding M&M’s case is being held this week. Neither The Queen nor I have any clue what to expect. We’ve been getting contradictory information about how things will/should go. We just know we will be at the hearing.

More updates to follow as events warrant.