The Learning Curve.

The extremes are amazing with this kid. I imagine Jackson is not unique in this aspect. I thought we were regressing back to a bad place on Wednesday night. Around 9:30 the screaming began. It was accompanied by intense rooting like the poor child was starving to death. So, naturally, Betsy offered him his favorite meal. He instantly latched on and started sucking furiously. "Ah! That's better" right? Wrong! Within seconds he had pulled away from the breast like it was full of scalding hot coffee and he'd just burned his tongue. Screaming and rooting despite having apparently what he wanted right in front of him. "Oh Crap!" we thought. What do you do with a hungry baby that now seems to hate eating? This went on for a while. Angrily feeding for a second or two and then crazy screaming and rooting. Finally Betsy gave up on trying to feed him and we focused our energy on just trying to sooth and calm the poor guy. We tried all our tricks and nothing worked. Giving him an impromptu bath calmed him down for exactly the duration of the bath. Then it was right back to screaming. By this time Betsy and I are shooting each other looks as if to say, "this kid is broken, what do we do know"? Around ten minutes to midnight I put him up on my shoulder and took him for a few laps up and down the hallway (my most reliable calming trick to date). Just as suddenly as the episode began, it stopped. Jackson became dead weight in my arms. I handed him over to momma and the two of them went to sleep on the couch. We had survived.
The next day followed and was a good one. Jackson had visitors and he even went shopping with Betsy and Grandma M. The perfect angel all day long and well into the evening. Then it happened. At the stroke of 9:30, crazy screaming Jackson was back. Just like the night before it seemed. Same wild eating approach and inconsolability. We figured we were in for another two and a half hours of "what do we do!". This time it only lasted about and hour. maybe even less. Victory! He calmed down and we watched TV

A little later, he and Betsy went right off to sleep on the couch. Survived another one.
Yesterday, was another good one. I put him in the car seat with a goofy hat, he stuck his tongue out at me, and we went out and had lunch.

Again, he was good all day. He even did a little sleeping on the couch by himself. We got some smiles. He went shopping again. He got to see his aunt Stacey.

Good times. Don't get me wrong. There's always crying and fussing and spitting up and whatnot, but that stuff's easy now. Then it happened again. Just like clockwork. Around 9:30 the poor kid started going nuts again. same exact story. Betsy and I hoped it would be more like the previous night's episode rather than the one before that. Turned out it was even shorter than that. Forty-five minutes, tops. He settled down, had a nice calm feed, and the three of us watched a movie. After the movie, we decided to try actually sleeping in bed. All three of us. Guess what? It worked. Unbelievable. Before long we're gonna have this kid sleeping in his own bed.
Of course, now that I've bragged about all of this, the next several nights will be hell on Earth.
Wish us luck.