Sleepless in Birmingham

 Most of my life, I've always had my fair share of insomnia.

whether it was stress-related, work-related, intentionally induced or just generally occurring. All these instances do not compare with having to lose sleep while your baby is bright-eyed at 2 am, actively awake and making sure you don't slip up or sleep off in this case..lol

Earlier when Zoe was about two months or so, it was a struggle. It would get worse when Princess Zoe would decide unilaterally that the whole residents of Browns Green, Birmingham had no right to be asleep when she was awake and start wailing away with her wonderful set of lungs. Bruh...those nights were something.

Pickin wey say mama no go sleep and all the other stories yunno....

omo.. Based on her sleep and feeding cycle around that period, Chioma and I had to develop a tag team schedule where we would pass Zoe to her Grandma first for a couple of hours (around 10pm-12am), then I would sleep off and Chioma would be with her till around 3pm or 4pm. I would then wake up and take her downstairs with me where she'd eat and usually sleep off in my arms (She is a huge lover of contact sleep) and I'd be awake with her till late the next morning whenever the rest of the household wake up.

Ahh... those days..and nights

Thank God for good parental leave on our parts and help from Zoe's wonderful Grandma.

Anyway, it's gotten much better these days with things gradually falling into place and better routines being established. To all upcoming parents.. I assure you this period WILL pass.

The great white thread

The thread, the myth, the legend!!

Lol...growing up back then, I was familiar with this...(what do I even call it now?...myth? folklore? old wives' tale?) thing about a method of stopping baby hiccups using a thread.

Not entirely sure how it came about, and my pessimist minion strongly insinuates coincidence... but almost all mothers we grew up around used to strip off a white thread from any of their babies' clothing items and place it on their heads once they started to hiccup. It's unbelievable but in almost all cases, the hiccups ceased very soon after. 

Of course, there's no scientific data on how this works or any proof that this actually stops them but seeing as hiccups are a common occurrence with babies and seeing as the definition of "baby" fits my darling Zoe, I decided to contribute my own quota to this great mystery that has plagued humanity from time immemorial.

One fine afternoon, Princess Zoe, feeling very disgruntled at her servants' slowpoke pace in making up her bottle of milk (we're very sorry, boss), rolled her eyes at us(I'm imagining this now) when it eventually arrived, and rushed it down. Finally sated, she surveyed her kingdom from her daddy's lap and promptly launched into hiccups.

Ahah! Time for action

I sharply looked around and saw one of her white blankets nearby. Yanking it, I managed to string off a thread (a big one in this case) from one corner and, looking up to the ancestors for guidance, placed it on madam Z's lovely crown of hair.

Ladies and Gentlemen, start the countdown. 

Lo and behold, not up to two minutes later, I first noticed that the frequency of the hiccups changed. From a very regular beat of chest heaving...they slowed down into intermittent "hics" and finally stopped after about 5 minutes.

Hmmmm....I'm speechless at this point because from previous episodes, I know for sure that her hiccups can go on for much, much longer periods.

Yaaay.... One -nil for the Ancestors!

And Baby makes three

 So I mentioned earlier about life not being the same again since Zoe arrived, but I truly underestimated how much things would change.

Bruh... It's been a total overhaul of life on the Ibemere planet.

Chioma and I had a sweet little system going... where there was always time for lazy evenings after work, deciding what to eat,  spending an inordinate amount of time deciding what series or film to watch, long evening strolls, staying up late on my part, sneaking in date night here and there, visiting friends and having time to read novels.

Hmmm... i laugh in Zoe Chizara!!

for the past four months or so, I honestly can't recall a successful series we've finished (maybe one or two sha) or remember when we weren't passed out from exhaustion by 10pm.

Omo..I have to hand it to Chioma. I've always known she was going to be Super-Mum but I have to say she's been absolutely amazing with Zoe. Throughout this period, she's reshaped and re-moulded herself to balance everything and trust me it has definitely NOT been easy at all. She does a ton of baby research, shops for new things ( i'm sure her online shopping carts are full of recommendations and things we have to buy), we're exclusively feeding Zoe with breastmilk, so you can imagine the amount of time and energy involved with that, does most of the heavy lifting (literally speaking) when it comes to spending time with our little madam (unfortunately, as I'm not always around), matter of fact, we joked about not having to gym too much as her baby weight is sufficient for exercises, Suffice to say, she's the leading authority on all things baby Zoe.

Of course, I ensure my part is fully contributed too. As i said earlier, a baby is definitely not a one-person affair. House chores, shopping, cooking, spending time with Madam Z when I'm around and all other sundry affairs. So far so good, it's been working out for us and what's a little exhaustion in the grand scheme of things eh?😫😫

Photo dump

 Hi people..

What's been up with y'all? hope good. It's been a roller-coaster couple of months since life as we knew it changed entirely. I've been settling nicely into fatherhood and daddy duties.

I'm happy to report that Zoe is everything we dreamed and prayed for. She's settled nicely now and is growing happy and healthy, as we always prayed she would, hitting her milestones and becoming the happy child we all know she'll be. 

She's about four months plus now and when i was chatting with my fam some time ago, Uche mentioned documenting everything about her growing stages as much as possible because time will just blur past and before you know it, it'll be gone in a flash. In the spirit of that, this post will just be a photo dump of her progress so far.

It's weird yunno. Me that i dont really like taking pictures at all now has an overflowing picture gallery of pics and videos of our little madam..lol.. 

Google sef has been warning me to upgrade my storage capacity (something they've never done since.)

Anyway..life anagaga.. 

I present to you.. Princess Zoe!!! (featuring Mom and Dad)

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