Okay, so I’m posting this one day early. But saying “Two Weeks” is a lot easier than “One week, Six Days, and Four Hours.”

First off, Life with Riley has been awesome. Regardless of any story I might tell you, this kid is the greatest thing in the world (minus tacos, Manwich, and my wife). Riles spends the majority of the day being a perfect little soul. He hangs out, makes funny noises, and poops his pants. He has somewhat of a permanent scowl which I can only assume he’s inherited from me. I’m hoping he grows out of it by 4 months. I make sure to not scowl in front of him too much.

Now, the not so great part.

Riles is turning a tad colicky. From Day One this child has not been a big sleeper. He likes to be awake. He really likes to be awake at 2am. And if you are boring him at 2am when he is awake he likes to tell you so by screaming. We had hoped we dodged the colic bullet. The first few nights, while frustrating, did not include a screaming baby. But the last couple have had us reaching for any book possible to find out what we can do.

We found out that colic doesn’t set in for a few weeks. Colic isn’t anything to “cure” necessarily. It just means the kid cries for no apparent reason without any way to comfort him. The medical definition of colic is a child that screams for 3 hours a day for 3 days a week (or 3 days in a row, I can’t remember). We are far from the medical definition but closer that we would like.

We’re still trying to work out the specifics but it appears that if we wake Riley up anytime between 6pm and midnight he will scream. We have to wake the kid to feed him at least once. Of course, he will wake on his own and start screaming as well. To remedy the situation we try to strategically plan when we wake him so that we can get a little rest ourselves.

The whole waking baby process is about a 2 hour cycle. The first hour is spent waking him up with a diaper change, changing any clothes that he pooped or puked on, and feeding him. The last hour is spent trying to figure out what will calm him down. Once he’s done eating there is a 10 minute grace period before the evening’s fuss-fest. Nooks, more food, rocking, holding, playing all get cycled through.

Sure, at 2am when all hell seems to be breaking loose it’s very frustrating. Courtney and I do well together. If one of us is getting overwhelmed we just hand him over to the other for a break. By morning I’m typically ready to give it another go. By the evening when I’m getting home it’s time to start it all over again.