The Longest Day

Forget Operation Overlord. Ian and I have just had the longest Day of Days. It’s 3:48 am, this timeline is as accurate and factual as I am capable of recalling.

• 8:00 pm Sarah having pain, in bed with heating pad. Mac puts Baby to bed with standard routine, about 8:30. Normal bedtime is between 8:45 and 9:15. We’re consistent with this.
• 10:30 During a YouTube video of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (cannot recommend this show highly enough) Baby wakes up, screams.
• 10:37 We decide something is wrong, usually a little nightmare he’ll fuss for 90 seconds and go back to sleep.
• 10: 45 Mac goes in to soothe and offer more bottle, standard operating procedure (SOP). Baby gets one soothe visit per night if needed while teething is in full swing. He refuses to be soothed.
• 11:30 Baby stands in crib and screams. And screams. AND SCREAMS. Very unusual, I go to investigate. Decide to give him standard dose of baby ibuprofen because when I touch around his mouth he looks like that pissed off little red memory voiced by Lewis Black in the film Inside Out. SOP again in play, Mommy leaves after one short comfort song. This tactic almost never needed.
• 12:05. Mac and I agree this is unprecedented. Daddy tries sitting in favorite chair, offering bottle of nice new milk, BABY MAD. Baby beginning to TALK LIKE HULK. YOU WON’T LIKE ME WHEN I’M ANGRY.
• 12:30. Holy cow, this is has never happened before. Mommy and Daddy have checked temperature, gently tugged both ears, hear snot but snotsucker produces disappointing results. For me. I think Mac is always happier when there’s not a lot of gelatinous boogery stuff. He says it doesn’t bother him. I know he’s lying, he knows I know he’s lying, now I have made a public record of the fact I know he hates what he professes not to hate and I know that’s bullshit and he knows I know and now you know what? Now you know. That’s what will be listed as the cause in the divorce papers should I receive some tomorrow. Sorry, Mac. I’m tired.
• 12:45. Again…no idea. Back in bed. Constant, relentless screaming. I put on the soundtrack for The Wiggles on my phone, leave phone near crib but out of sight thinking he’ll relax and fall asleep.
  • Dear Mommy, I can hear Simon but not see him? Tell me again, what made you think this would work?
• 1:20. He hasn’t stopped screaming in 3+ hours. There’s no longer any, any way to salvage the “nighttime is for sleep and we don’t do other things at night” concept. Our firmness had never backfired until now. I have to strip him out of his pjs, which are WET. Not damp, WET at the collar from tears. Fresh diaper again, now new PJs, and I get a wild idea that says, in Lewis Black’s voice, “Huh! Might as well try gas drops. Everything else on the planet has done jack shit.”
• 1:30 Daddy takes him for a drive. It invigorates him and then he feels super sleepy. I mean Mac. Who knows what the hell was going with The Incredible Sulk in the car seat?
• 2:00 I tell Mac to go to bed. As the certified night owl, this really is supposed to be my biggest contribution; I take the night stuff because Mac needs to sleep for work, and in return I sleep later in the a.m.
• 2:20 I give in. Kid, I give in. I put on The Wiggles, he lets me give him a proper dose of Tylenol and antigas drops in him. He had spit out a good deal of the first ibuprofen three hours ago, how much he got in his system, who could tell you?
• 3:00 He has quit crying, (now he’s only cranky) because he now has Cheerios, The Wiggles, and even mommy looks tired
• 3:17 While dancing the Hot Potato song as he holds himself up from a chair, he turns and looks straight at me, and
• 3:18 FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAART. PHHHHHBBBBBBBTT. TOOOOOOOOT. RIPPING, GIGANTIC, FART.

• FAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAART

• Looks at me, with a sweet angelic grin, and I’m not making this up, he holds his hands out to me. When I pick him up he says “ma-ma.” It’s clear, and beautiful, and he takes one ounce of milk before he rubs both eyes and I lay him in his crib.
• 3:22. Out like a frickin light, chubby little cheeks smooth with the sheen on dried tears on his face.
• 3:30. Decide to write it now, while it’s fresh in my mind. And, er, foul in the living room. Realize something like this happened in that movie The Last King of Scotland.
• 3:40. Yo. Imes Borden: these contacts won’t take themselves out.
• Good night