– 3:16 pm

You, your mother and grandmother took the car for a walk. Hampton Court I’m told. Since resuming work, you and I don’t get to hang out as much. Sad but inevitable. An alternative perspective is to see it as an opportunity for you and Julia to spend as much time as possible. Her stay with us has an expiry date so I’m letting her soak it all in while she can. She’s cherishing every moment. It’s obvious, even to Stevie Wonder.

You’ve been joyfully listening to a medley of her childhood ballads (and all music in general) and learning Russian. She only speaks to you in Russian. I find it peculiar but exciting that one day, you’ll become a non-white person fluent in the language. It reminds me of this guy’s story. Russia has a bad rep at the moment because of the war in Ukraine but who knows how another language will serve you in the future.

I, on the other hand, have been speaking to you in French, English and Pidgin English. I pick at random, unmindfully and playfully based on the mood I think you’re in. Whichever flows, I swim with it. But most of the time, I use all three, simultaneously. Good luck telling them apart. Writing this has got me wondering when a good time is to start teaching a child multiple languages. My gut says whenever. Let’s see.

With your grandad returning to Riga (he misses you a lot by the way), we’ve been taking turns looking after you. Each night is split into two shifts. After eleven, you tend to wake up between 1:30 and 2 am. That’s the first shift and the first changing of the guard. From then, you typically sleep through the second shift to six. I’m usually out of the picture beyond then, getting ready for work.

As anticipated, I spend most school working nights on the sofabed in the basement. Once I’m up, going back to sleep is very hard. Regardless of the hour. You already know this. My mind thinks it’s the best time to start showcasing all the different things I have to do. Imagine having to sit front row to a catwalk of tasks twirling at the front of the runway, to and fro, in the same outfits, repeatedly. Yeah, fuck!

My body soon joins the nightmare after a while, at which point it’s near impossible to sleep until the early morning hours when I actually have to be up. Somehow, I find it difficult to disconnect when I have incomplete to-dos. I have a lot of to-dos. Your uncle Manu once asked me how I manage to do all these things, when do I sleep? I don’t. That’s how. Looks like only death will free me too.

There was a time I used to drink to sleep. A bit of gin and tonic to shut my mind up was the remedy. Every time I did, Liza would go, “are you drinking every day now?”. It was never daily but I got tired of hearing it. I knew it was her way of calling out a red flag. But the conscious inaccuracy of the question was super annoying. So I stopped. Probably for the best. You’d have a drunk for a father by now. And believe me, you don’t. I would know.

I’m also a super light sleeper. Any sound or fidgeting will wake me up. Right now, all you do is wriggle. A lot, especially during the second shift. You also make these choking outbursts with every twist and turn. It doesn’t only wake me up but it’s also worrying and anxiety-inducing. I have to keep checking the camera feed to make sure you don’t have a muslin over your face, suffocating in your own vomit or something dreadful. So to sleep, I’d have to smother you. That’s the only way. Your mother won’t allow it so I guess I’m downstairs for the time being. I overheard her saying to you, “you’ve split up the family”. She’s not a fan of this new sleeping arrangement. Fact. But we need this cadence to make this work.

In other news, you’ve also started making new sounds. We can tell when you’re happy and playing versus discomfort. You’re evolving very fast.

We’re also going to tilt your crib to reduce the effects of reflux. One of my friends told me he wished someone had told them about that when they had their first. In his words, these were “THE MOST stressful times”.