Fuss AND Muss
Like many babies, Harvey has decided that the dinnertime hour is daily fussy time. And since he's looking ahead to a future of international travel, his dinnertime hour stretches roughly from 5:30pm to well after 10pm. Hey, you want to make sure all your bases are covered when it comes to unabated boredom crying.
It's been a learning curve dealing with the fussing. The first night I had an emotional break-down from not being able to comfort my baby. Then we learned that some daily crying is normal, and I got over being sad and went straight to irritated. Yes, crying to communicate is perfectly normal, but that doesn't mask the fact that the sound of a baby crying is WICKED ANNOYING.
Dan is doing much better with the fussing than I am. He gets annoyed much less readily than I do, so you won't find HIM holding a pillow over her head to stifle the sound. Yesterday evening during a crying spell Dan took Harvey out to the hammock where he rocked him, sang to him, and read to him from The Economist. When they came back inside the baby had calmed a bit and was wimpering more quietly. I asked Dan how it went and he said, "I think Harvey is very confused about the situation in Iraq."
Compounding the good Daddy points, Dan also took the baby at bedtime so I that could get some sleep. This was after an hour of both of us singing to him, to no sleep-inducing avail. Whenever Dan offers to do take the baby away and let me sleep, I feel like I won some sort of husband jackpot. I try to make it up to him by watching the baby most of the day, implying an exchange rate of about 8-to-1 for fussy-to-cuteness parenting time.
I had more to say about this issue, but the baby's waking up now and I've got to feed him before he wakes the rest of the house.