Your conventional wisdom is crazy.

Woody's like a normal baby on steroids. Actually, Woody is JUST like a normal baby on steroids, considering that he still is being administered the steroids to help out his lungs, but that's not what I'm talking about. No, I'm referring to the fact that all he does is eat, poop, and (very) occasionally sleep, and is utterly immune to reason ("Woody, can you just give your mom and me FOUR HOURS of uninterrupted sleep? I promise we'll do many excellent things that you'll love later!"). In addition to these items, which are the typical ones that make Grandmothers cackle, we have some extra special Woody-specific issues, that make taking care of him a special challenge. For instance, the fact that the oxygen tubed in through his cannula is incredibly dry, which cracks out his nose and gives him nosebleeds. Or the fact that his hernias make him constantly constipated and sometimes visibly so, which makes him pretty angry. So Woody is a particularly difficult new kid, I think, although he's so darned cute and innocent it's not like you can get mad at him.*

The big problem we've had with him is that he just declines to sleep at night, preferring instead to sleep well during the day and then not at night. Worse, he taunts us by falling asleep easy as pie-- as long as we're holding him. As soon as we put him down and try to sneak back to bed, he's up and fussing, and we have been thwarted again.

Maggie and I have, like many new parents, thought about kids and kid issues for years. I realized over the weekend that many times when discussing these issues with other parents, we've been told something like "well, wait until you're parents, and you'll change your tune.". This conventional wisdom is, we agree, still crazy. Three examples below.

• Item: kids in restaurants. Maggie and I have thought for a long time that it's pretty rude to bring small babies to restaurants. We cringe when they cry, we are unhappy about the disrupting effect on the other patrons, and we can't imagine why it's doing the parents any favors to not enjoy the meal and instead pay attention to the brat. But people tell us when we've complained, "oh, wait until you're a parent. You'll want to bring them out too." Our thought?
  
  This is crazy talk. We have no interest in bringing Woody out to some awesome restaurant. Sure, I can see exceptions to this rule, but why ruin a meal for everyone by bringing an infant? I just don't get it.



• Item: not being able to leave the kid behind. It's a total cliche that the first time having a babysitter is really tough on the parents, and they put it off for weeks and then call home fifty times to make sure the kid is fine. We've always thought this is strange, and that when we have a kid we'll be totally fine with having a babysitter. But people tell us that we'll change our tune when we have a kid. What do we think now?
  
  You people are crazy. We're ready right now to go out and leave the kid behind. Anyone want to babysit? I mean, I hate to make too light of this, but having a small, demanding semi-human messing with your ability to interact with adults and otherwise have ten minutes of uninterrupted relaxation is incredibly tough. Come on down, he's really cute.



• Cloth diapers. We've always thought they feel better, look better, and are at least environmentally (and cost) neutral, if not net beneficial, over using disposable. Yet people for years have told us that we'll never keep using cloth diapers. In fact, at least a half dozen nurses at the NICU told us 'you won't keep up with it a week,' and otherwise poo-pooed (pun intended) our desire to put Woody in the cloth diapers. Well, it's been more than a week now, and what do we think?
  
  Crazy talk! It's not ok to act crazy. Cloth diapers are still better looking, better feeling, and are easy as pie to use. We don't see any reason to give our money to Big Diaper, and will continue to put the good stuff on Woody.

In short, maybe we're the odd ones, maybe the people who have been talking to us for years are. And it is certainly well within the realm of possibilities that both possibilities are true. I certainly guarantee that if Woody doesn't re-arrange his waking pattern soon, Maggie and I will both be getting great sleep in a padded room.

*After two straight hours of him not sleeping, at 4 this morning, I went and begged Maggie to take over and let me get some sleep so I could go to work and be something resembling "productive." She got up, grumbling, but when she went into the living room and saw Woody sitting in his bouncy chair staring at the light fixture, she just busted out laughing because he was so cute and ridiculous. Which is the way it goes.