It's common to the point of being cliché that new parents often spend the first few weeks in an adaptation dream, and then are sorely disappointed when their "easy baby" turns out to be more fussy than they'd hoped. With Olive, we were going in with our eyes open and our research completed; we shouldn't have fallen prey to any such traps.

But… she was a really easy baby, at first. There are challenges with any baby, but her needs were pretty easy to understand, and she communicated them very politely. Once they were addressed, she'd quickly quiet down again. What kind of baby could be easier than that?

That was when she was a newborn. Now, at six weeks old, things have gotten more difficult. We've all known for a while that Olive's favorite activity is to feed at the breast. The issue is that she's discovered that she has a voice, and that if she uses it loudly enough, for long enough, we'll eventually put her back on the breast, no matter how recently she's fed or what else is going on.

This is doing wonderful things for her growth: in seven days last week, she gained 590 grams. She gains muscle tone, neck control, and simple weight every day, in perceptible increments.

This is doing terrible things to our schedule and our sanity. Take this evening: Christina took Olive for an hour after dinner to give me time to do my own thing. She spent most of that time feeding her. Eventually, Olive unlatched and fell asleep; Christina asked me to change her diaper. I did so, knowing this would wake her up, but I put her into a sleep sack anyway on an optimistic basis. Lying down next to her in bed wasn't productive: she started wailing. Walking back and forth with her in a darkened room didn't help; she got louder. Rocking her in a chair in a darkened room didn't help; she just got louder.

Christina, meanwhile, was taking this time to get just a few minutes to herself, and then make her own preparations for bed. Eventually, she was done; she laid down and took Olive to her breast. Instantly, the cries stopped, as Olive started eating ravenously.

I had Olive for maybe half an hour, and while the cries weren't exactly constant, they were insistent, loud, and directly into my ear. I've been another half hour writing this post so far, and my ears are still ringing. Christina's had maybe 15 minutes of time to herself after dinner, and during that time she still heard the cries even though she wasn't responsible for them.

This is our pattern every evening these days. It's not that Olive actually needs anything; we've controlled for hunger, cleanliness, dry clothing, a comfortable room. It's just that she insists on eating herself to sleep, and is incredibly easy to wake.

Pacifiers? She rejects them. If you don't physically hold one in, she pops it out immediately. If you hold one in, she's willing to give it a few tentative sucks, but loses interest within seconds and lets it drop out. If you insist on holding one in for more than a minute or so, she just starts crying around it.

I can only hope that this phase doesn't last for too long: there are more changes coming, and they're not going to make it easier to get along as a family. I'm going back to work.

Christina, being German, has some really nice family benefits: for the first year after birth, she's given a long maternal leave, and 2/3 of her previous salary during it. She's going back to grad school in the spring, but she'll still get 3/4 of a year to spend purely as a mother before resuming her other responsibilities.

If I were working a normal job here, even as an immigrant, I'd be eligible for the same thing, and I'd be glad to take it. These six weeks have gone by really quickly, and I'm really enjoying spending the time purely as a family thing. Unfortunately, as a freelancer, I'm ineligible. I'd been planning to start polishing my résumé this week, but before I even began, I was contacted by the agency I work through with two different positions. I'm going to interview with each of them and see how it goes; I may not need to spend much time at all seeking out the next position.

That much will be good; I always feel better when I have an income. I just have to hope that Christina will deal well with it. She's frankly envious of me: she'd love to go back to work this soon, if only there were a position compatible with a 40-minute baby feeding every hour or so. She'll have Olive all day, every day; while that's not technically much different from what she's been doing with the recent feeding schedule, she's treasured the opportunities to hand Olive off to me in those moments when she wasn't hungry. If I'm working, she can't do that.

We'll make it all work out somehow, of course. It's just that right now, in the middle of making these plans for work, Olive has decided to become difficult, for the first time in her life. I don't yet know how we'll calm her down, just that of necessity, we'll manage it.