[silence]

[baby crying]

[00:00:20]

[music]

[00:00:40]

Do you[00:00:50]know the muffin man,

The muffin man, the muffin man,

Do you know the muffin man,

[00:01:00] who lives in Drury Lane?

[00:01:10]

If anything has its upsand downs,

it's the first few months of parenting.

We all know it's wonderfulto cuddle a baby and see that first smile.

What about the times that aren't so great?

No matter how much you prepare,

or how many books you read,it's never quite like you expected.

It's harder.

Talking with othernew parents helps a lot.

You realize you haven't lost your senseof humor and that you're not alone.

Before long, it starts to get easier.

You may still be getting upa lot at night,

but you know it's only goingto get better.

[music]

[00:02:00]

I suddenly realizedthat I had a daughter.

Being a nurse, nursing, oh,and I was really frantic for a second.

She just really clicked and I thought,

"Oh, I knew this was going to work."

No, I didn't,but I was really happy when it did.

I just tried to stay real relaxed,and the nurses would say,

"Oh, she's doing very well,"and I said, "She's the expert.

I don't know.

I'm just taking cues from her."

I had every single problemfrom engorged breasts,

to sore nipples, to cracked nipples,to the milk just not coming down.

She's three months old.

I feel finallythat we've reached a plateau

where the breastfeeding is working out,

and now it is very comfortable,

but it was never the exalted typeof experience

that it was promised to be either.

Okay.

Come on, let's eat.

Come on.

Oh, you got a little frown in your face?

Come on.

"More milk, mommy." Oh, poor mommy.

That's a girl.

A little break?

When I got her home from hospital,

and then I started breastfeeding her,

and I was doing the nighttime feeding,I was just incredibly tired.

I just had never been that tired before.

I was just surprised that I wasthat tired just from breastfeeding,

and I wasn't doing anything else.

I wasn't working,I wasn't taking care of the house.

I wasn't cooking.

[00:03:40] I thoughtthat the baby would come out

and look at us in a meaningful way,

and we would look back in a meaningful way

and then he would want to eat.

He didn't really want to eat,and he didn't want to eat for a long time.

By about the third day,we were getting the hang of it.

The nice thing was that he was so gentlethat I never got sore.

He liked to think and eatand think and eat.

That was just his temperament.

The benefit for me asidefrom my never feeling uncomfortable

with it was that it slowed me downin a really nice way.

I had been living my lifeat a pretty fast pace for a long time,

and it was a chance to just sit there.

You can't run around,you can't be frantic,

you can't do something else.

I got time to gaze at the babyand be there in a really nice way,

so he gave me something very nice.

I've been back at work for a month now.

I'm able to pump my breast milkduring my breaks at work

and freeze it for Dan to giveto Shannon while I'm gone.

[baby crying]

[00:04:50]

[00:05:00] Is that better?

Is that better?

[?]

[00:05:10]

[music]

[00:05:20] I gained over 40 pounds.

I added six and a half pound baby

I only lost 10 pounds when she was born.

I felt like a bedraggled housewife.

I didn't wash my hair, I was overweight,I just don't feel very attractive.

The differencebetween feeling like a mother

and a lover is quite a distinction.

I think that has happenedin the relationship

that I defined myself in most waysas a mother, now.

I could have been a little more realisticin recovery time,

that probably would have been smart.

I might not have been quite as frustrated.

Every time you put him down,he wanted to wake up again.

Didn't want to miss any of the action.

I thought because I'd had suchan effortless pregnancy that,

"Oh, it won't take me long,"

and I was really shockedat how long it took me to get my wind,

my feet back under me.

Even now, I'll catch a napin the afternoon if I can.

Because it really makes me feellike a better person.

When evening comes around,

and maybe he's got a belly acheor whatever

or just the dishes need to be done,

I have that extra energy to do it.

My body image was totally destroyed.

I'd always been very active.

It was very difficult for me to getinto any kind of exercise pattern at all

because Leah's sleeping habitswere so irregular.

I didn't seem to be able to get ridof my dark circles under my eyes.

It was just basically very difficult

for me to get out of my bathrobeto do anything.

I find that the running and swimming

and I go to a dance class,those things really do help

because it's just me again,whereas it hasn't been just me.

I think the pregnancyand even now the breastfeeding,

there's always somethingthat's attached to me

and attached to my body,

and it's really nice just going outand being alone.

The book said that babies are fussyfrom birth to three months,

and we were, "Oh, no,this is going to last for three months."

Naima's about fiveweeks old.

I think the first coupleof weeks she was at home,

she hardly cried at all exceptfor when she was wet.

You could just pick her up and hold heror talk to her,

and she would stop crying.

One night, she had a touch of colic

or she had gas on her stomachfrom just not burping

and being real new to the breastfeeding.

She was about three weeks old,

and she just started cryingand screaming at the top of her lungs,

and she just didn't stop.I didn't know what to do.

I fed her, I tried burping her

I tried everything I could think of,

I walked her, I held her,I patted her back.

All the normal things I dothat usually work,

it just didn't work at all.

I didn't know what was going on with her.

It just kept going onand on and on and on.

I was just really frustrated.

I'm the one who felt like cryingbecause I didn't know what to do.

I felt helpless.

Here she was, just this tiny little thing,

and I couldn't do anything for her.

About an hour after that, it just stopped,

but it was real frustrating for me.

I felt inadequate feelingsof being a mother.

I'm feeling overwhelmed with this infant.

It was like this is the time I couldgive her back, say, "I don't want this.

I'm not ready to deal with this.

Let me have my old life back."

Jacob is just a real fussy baby.

He cries most of the time when he's awake,

although less now than at the beginning.

He doesn't sleep for long periods of time.

He used to wake up exactly an hour

and a half after every time I fed him,

and he would just cryuntil I fed him again.

He'd wake up an hour and a halfafter I fed him

and cry until I fed him again.

I really had a hard timewith my first child.

I don't know if she was actually cocky.

She started sleepingthrough the night very early on,

but she was screaming regularlyfor almost three months

from 5:00 o'clock at nightuntil 11:00 o'clock at night.

It was real hard to deal with.

Not so much the feelings of resentment,

the tension, resentment,frustration of the constant screaming

and being able to do virtually nothing.

About the only thingI was able to do is vacuuming.

If I held her in one hand and vacuumwith the other that would keep her quiet.

We'd take long car ridesand all sorts of things to try

and keep her quiet for just 15 minutesat a time, 20 minutes at a time.

[?]  [00:09:40]

She's absolutely perfect and calm

and she never criesunless she has a legitimate beef.

Then when she does go off the walls

and start screaming her head off,I go frantic.

I'm not used to dealing with her,

then something must be terribly wrongor she wouldn't be behaving like that.

I'm just now accepting the fact

that she has a rightto have a temper tantrum,

and that nothing's wrong,

and I don't have to call the pediatrician,

and the fire department,and the police department,

and the Marines.

I can't let him cry.[laughs] I'm a sucker.

[laughs] He reels me in every time

Being with him all daymakes me a little bit more easygoing now,

about letting him cry for a few minutes.

Before, I was very nervousabout him crying.

I would want to goand pick him up right away,

but I found that there were thingsthat I had to do.

I had to have time to take a showerin the morning sometimes,

and he would be crying.

When I start into the shower and I think,

"It's only going to be just a few minutes.

Just long enough to take a quick shower."

When I got out, he'd be asleep,

and I'd realize that maybethat's what he has to do to go to sleep.

[music]

One of the things that I've realized

is how difficult a job being a parent is.

It's a 24-hour day job.

I don't think anybody knows beforethey had a baby how tired one can get.

I was just walking around the houselike a zombie.

I had no interaction with Nick,my husband.

Everything seemed to be revolvingaround this little child.

I think that I was runningon reserve tank a lot of the times.

I don't know where I pulled out allof what little energy I normally have

because I normally requireabout eight hours of sleep,

and here I was getting themin snatches throughout the day.

[00:11:50] I had no ideahow important it was to sleep,

and that sounds crazy.

I had a couple of nightswhere I felt myself saying,

"This isn't fair.

There's got to be a way this can work.

If I'm her momand I'm supposed to nurse her,

and your milk comes in betterwhen you're rested,

and she won't let me go to sleep,how is this supposed to work?"

Our sex life has been real slowto resurrect itself.

We're eight months now.

It's really just starting to get backto something like it was beforehand now.

A big part ofthat was the tiredness that comes,

particularly for Jane, from breastfeeding.

From knowing that,we went to bed at 11:00,

we better get to sleepbecause he was going to be crying

again in three hoursor something like that.

We sort of used the excuse that,

"We're both busy and something is going

to be impendingin the next couple of hours,

so it doesn't matter that much.

We've got to get our rest."

I seem to always think about,"What's the baby doing?"

When we start to get involvedwith each other,

then I think, "I wonder if he needs me,"and that's very distracting to me.

Also, I was gladthat someone brought up earlier

that the distraction of having milkget all over everything [chuckles]

when you make love, and I thought,

"Oh, that's interesting,"and everything is getting wet."

For a while, I thought,

"This is another thing I'm goingto have to do.

I'm going to have to dealwith another area

where I'm going to have to give."

Afterwards, I always enjoyed it,

and it was good even if it wasn'tas great as it had been before,

we did get a little closer.

When I was thinking about it,I would always say,

"I'd rather go to sleep."

[?]

[music]

[00:14:00]

We haven't even had timeto complete a fight.

You know what I mean?

We need a good three or four hoursto fight and talk.

We never get to the talking part,it's just like,

"We know we haveto go do something else now,

and we know we really love each other,so we'll deal with it in three years."

I was very much into dressingthe baby for warmth.

She had a different theory altogether

about the necessityof warm clothing for infants.

She felt that there wasn't a needfor as much warm clothing

as often as I cared to have him dressedin that way.

The mobile.

How the baby's mobile should be--

do this with the mobileor that with the mobile.

How soon should we goto the baby if he's crying?

Should we develop a kind of abilityto tolerate stress in his life?

Let him cry for 30 secondsor 5 seconds or 3 minutes?

It's very hard.

From my own experience,

I suspected some of themwere heated disagreements,

might come from the waythat you were raised

or the way that each person was raised.

I think I hada pretty positive family experience

when I was a child growing up.

There's just certain thingsthat my folks did

that definitely I wantto happen to this kid.

There's not really a lot of roomfor argument.

[chuckles] I don't want itto be different.

One of the things is [?],

I didn't really ask Janewhat it was like in her family.

Jane doesn't have any quirmsabout arguing right there infront of Annie

I can't stand her

I get up and leave the room.

I don't really want him to hearthat argument going on,

and I think I've sensedthat it frightens him a little bit.

I think that a man's fantasy,when he's feeling a little grouchy

about being left out or going to work

and being away from the babyis if a woman stays home

and plays with the baby all day,

you just have a great time playingwith the baby,

and that it is wonderful to lookat a little baby

and to cuddle a baby and to hold him

and feed him and do all those things.

I think that there is some tension

about what it means to home with the baby

and is it work or is it playand fact is it's both.

I think now, we're at a better placethan we were just

because we can havea little bit more sleep.

Also, we're able to stop ourselves,

"We know that we're undera lot of stress now.

This really isn't how it is for us,let's just remember we are in love.

We were once." [laughs]We've had some real high points, too

, with Jacob and with each other.

The whole business of workand when you go back,

and that one I don't thinkever gets solved.

When I go back to work,

I'm going to be ready to leave herwith somebody

and ready to commit myselfto doing something

that I don't like a whole lotbecause I need the money right now.

We're going to haveto enroll the baby in a daycare

or some infant care center,which means that that's time

that one of us or either of us won't bespending with the child full time.

From the time I was small,that the kind of family structure

that I had growing up, envisioned,

was one parent being aroundto take care of the little baby.

It's a reality a lot of people faceis having both parents work.

My worry at this pointis just how will the kid turn out.

I've read all about the baby's likelyto be fussy the first couple of months,

and then it's going to be quietand peaceful,

and it was just the opposite.

We had a very mellow first few months,

and then all of a sudden,

I was faced with a fussy babyjust when I went back to work.

It was hard not to take a guilt trip.

I went back to work when my baby's fussy,

and I'm not doing something right for her.

Leaving her alone with Dan,

I was convinced he was goingto sleep through her crying

or something terrible would happenwhile I was away.

It was really difficult for me.

Tired baby.

Good night, Shannon.

[?]

[00:18:10]

Just how strongly you guys feelabout the role of a father.

I don't think so muchabout being a father

as much as being a parent.

It's more of a cooperative effort.

There was a real differencein my family when I was growing up

between what my mother was to meand what my father was to me.

In some ways, I was much, much closer

to my mother when I was growing up,

and my fatherwas more the authoritarian figure.

A lot of times,particularly as I got a little bit older,

when he called me, I worried.

When I had any problems,I'd go to my mother,

and I really don't want to have

that division in my relationshipto my kids.

That good?

Is that good?

You want some dessert?

[chuckles] How are you eatingwith your tongue sticking out.

[silence]

What matters to me most isthat the child can feel

that I'm a person he can come to for loveand for fun and for good times.

More than anything,I just want the child to be happy,

and I want the child to knowthat I'm not the big, bad guy.

I'm soft, and I'm warm,and I'm loving also

and that he's more than welcometo come share it.

I have a job that takesabout 60 plus hours a week,

and the responsibility I feel isto be home more than I have been.

I find that pressures of being a family,

being now the father, are pressuresthat pull me away from my work

and make me actually, to some extent,less interested,

not a lot less interested,to some extent, less interested,

but definitely a little bit more resentful

of having to work so much.

I find what I'd really like to dois be able to go fishing with my kid,

even though he's only eight months old,

and he wouldn't enjoy itas much as I would.

[chuckles]

[music]Jenny put the kettle on, jellyman kelly,

Can he come home, jenny, can he come

I think the thing that hits me hardestabout being a single parent is

that I'm basically saying to her

that I have enough reserveto be available to you all the time,

and is that the truth?

I am a single parent,but my parents are alive,

my sister is alive,her children are alive.

There's a pretty good solidnetworking going.

I don't have to be all to her.

Then I thought, "Wait a minute,even if I wasn't a single parent,

two people should not promiseto be 100% to a kid either."

I also noticed that at work,a lot of people with kids

that I don't normally associatewith or talk to,

when they found out that I had a baby,they had stories galore

about their children and,"Just wait until he gets to be this age,

he'll be doing this and that."

I've actually foundthat I'm enjoying those stories.

[laughs] Which I probably would nothave enjoyed if I hadn't had a baby.

Somehow it brings out a nice aspectof humanness.

Somebody's starting to talkabout their little kid

or little kids in general,it's really easy to like them.

I don't feel likeI've given up anything either.

I feel like I've enriched my lifeby having a child,

and I feel likeshe'll add so much to my life

and make me a better person.

I think she keeps that other sideof me alive,

the child's side,that sometimes we close off as adults.

I think she really will help me rememberthat part of myself

and the part that I really enjoyed

and that I'm looking forwardto re-experiencing again with her.

[music]Oh, do you know the muffin man.

The muffin man, the muffin man

Oh, do you know the muffin man.

Who lives in Drury Lane.

[00:22:30]

Again, Oh, do you know the muffin man.

The muffin man, the muffin man.

Do you know the muffin man.

That lives in Drury Lane?

[silence] [00:22:50]