The Crying Game

My Mom - who else? - said that there would be days like this. I'm beyond exhausted after getting approximately 3 hours of good sleep last night. Every time things seemed to settle down and just before the last sheep had been counted Bean would rise again. She's almost 7 months old now, and in addition to a lot of other lovely discoveries she's learned to scream. I mean really wail. When it comes to pure unadulterated guttural screams, Bean does not play around. It sounds like the entire Seattle Symphony Orchestra is coming through our baby monitor, all of them. Even their shitty clarinet player, you know the one right? She's sitting with the rest of the orchestra, her hands are moving, and her mouth seems to be blowing, but I swear I can't hear any damn clarinet in the mix. I move to ban all clarinets from Symphony Orchestra's everywhere and if I didn't have a heart I would chuck the damn baby monitor out the window with them. But I can't do that, now can I? If I did then what kind of parent would I be? I'm shooting for "marginally good" so there will be no throwing of the baby monitor any time soon. But, if I could get away with it, without D breaking my nose, then I just might. No. Wait. On second thought, I would never do that. I love my little Bean and fancy myself as a damn nice fellow, so, again, there will be no throwing of the baby monitor.

But, if there was a time when I could've got away with throwing the baby monitor out the window, I think last night was it. The crying was incessant. It just went, nonstop. Sure, Bean would give us momentary respites from her paint peeling serenade, but for the most part last night was abysmal. Now that I think about it, I don't even know if I got 3 good hours of sleep at all. I don't feel like I got three good hours of sleep, and, since this bit is going to be completely selfish and all about me, I demand that in the future I get more sleep. I realize that I don't really have a say in the matter, but still.

It’s our fault, though. So I guess that I really don’t have much ground to stand on. We had been working a co-sleeping arrangement for a while. It worked for us, but in the long run we knew it wouldn’t be in our best interest to continue. Finally, after some debate, we decided it was time for Bean to sleep in her room. We’ve been working on it now for almost two weeks. Some nights are great, while others are, well, not so great. But, last night, by far, has been the worst. Each time she started with a whimper – the kind that just make you feel bad – and then would break into a full on wail. She can go from soft whiny moans to a full on buzz saw attack quicker than Shaun Alexander can juke a lineman. I’m not kidding, she’s that good. Usually my little angel tires herself out after a few minutes. Sometimes, we have to go in a couple of times to calm her down, but then after that she’s golden. Not last night though. Last night it was nothing doing, and even after reaching deep into our bag of tricks we still came up empty. I can’t begin to describe the feeling of failing – miserably – at soothing your child, and the truth is I don’t really want too.

I hope I make it through work today, I have my doubts, but I think I’m good for it. I’ll be thinking about bed the entire time, so I fear that my employer will just have to suck it up today and pay me for nothing, but I’ll show up. I’ll even be on time. I’ll be worthless, but punctual. That’s going to be my new motto, in fact.

“Hey Pau, what’s your motto?”
“I’m worthless, but punctual.”

Does that even qualify as a motto? I don’t know, I’m too tired to tell. Furthermore, I don’t care, because, again, I’m too tired to care.