December 9th, 2006
As long as we are clear on who is training who
First, this important message to any sentient toys who may be reading this blog: My recent post should by no means be taken as true disrespect to the BUTTERSCOTCH pony. I for one welcome our new equine robot overlords.
Good grief y’all. It’s 2:30 in the morning, and I just spent 45 (perceived?) minutes with a screaming baby as we went through our post-illness modified Ferberizing. Ferber, you’ll recall, is the child psychologist or whatever who theorized that infants are all natural born selfish jerks who must be coaxed gently into participating in society, beginning with important social lesson #1: Other people need to SLEEP you know.
For example, Ferber would agree that if that guy who lived in the apartment under us in 1995 had been properly trained as an infant, Kevin and I wouldn’t have had to teach him that important social lesson ourselves and things would have been so much nicer for everyone involved, except for me who was entertained by seeing my new boyfried get up at six in the morning to lay his massive speakers face down on the floor and play Bob Wills’ “Cotton Eyed Joe” for three minutes. And for Kevin, who was quite proud of himself for training our downstairs neighbor in only two days; the late night super crazy loud video game insanity stopped after many attempts at diplomacy had failed. That is the magic of Ferber, as outlined in his book, “The Country Music Sleep Solution.”
But with Graham, like I’ve said before, I have this brain defect that doesn’t allow me to let him cry it out. Cannot do it. Not because it’s evil, not because I don’t care, but simply because it turns out that I have a rare brain disorder that was triggered when he was born. It sucks.
So I do this modified version of CIO, which is Cry it Out while I Stand Next To The Crib and Take It Like A Man. That’s a figure of speech of course, since the man in the house can’t let the baby cry for one second without picking him up. But I can, so long as I’m there patting the crying baby and assuring him that even though he isn’t getting what he wants — which is to sleep in our bed and have continuous access to my boobs and be able to wake up and jab me in the eye and eat crackers in the bed and surf the internet on my laptop at all hours of the night and go onto message boards posing as me and start crazy debates about parenting — I am there and I do love him very, very much. I truly believe that my simple presence and voice sends a calming, reassuring message to him while he screams FUCK YOU WHORE at me over and over for 45 minutes.
Tonight was rough. He’s been a little spoiled by this whole month of being sick thing. He finally fell asleep in the third-world orphan position: sitting up, legs dangling through the bars of his crib, hands clutching the rails, forhead pressed against the crib. Asleep.
For just 50 cents a day, this poor child could have everything he needs to live a full life. Food. Shelter. Pajamas with little cars on the feet. A mom who isn’t a mean selfish bitch. Please, won’t you help?
***Update: Ten minutes after I posted this, Nicolaus thumped into our room and crawled in between us. “Bad dream,” he mumbled, “Poisonous creatures.” Now he has my pillow, and I’m not sure why he’s only wearing underwear since I swear I dressed him in fuzzy outer space pajamas with feet and all. But gosh he’s cute.
****Update: Two hours after I posted the last update, Graham woke up again to scream at me some more. This really isn’t crying you guys. He just screams… you know, like in the movies when a chimpanzee gets pissed off and starts jumping up and down screeching?
This time he fell asleep standing up but any time I tried to move him he was outraged. He’d pop back to his feet and slam himself towards me. What is the matter with you, woman? DO I LOOK SLEEPY?
At one point he took my hand and pushed it onto his shoulders, told me to pat him, leaned against the side rail, and started snoring. He literally snores. Oh man! Tell me that wouldn’t be a holiday toy hit – a snoring baby robot doll! With amazingly lifelike animatronic features, BUTTERSCOTCH Baby Asshole actually snores as he forces you to stand up and pat his back while he sleeps… for up to eight hours! Oh my god I am totally going to be rich.
December 9th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
And now we know how / why you’re so damn creative and artsy and fricken FUNNY. All this adversity and lack of sleep are feeding your muse, while we lazyass nightsleepers without BUTTERSCOTCH Baby Assholes are tricked into thinking we’re getting the better end of the deal. Suck Factor = 10.
December 9th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
oh my gosh, you are stronger than I. I can’t let E cry at all, no patience for it! Thta was funny, Tiffany. :)
December 9th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
I feel for you, dude. Holy cow, have I been there. Hours and hours of leaning over the crib, or sitting next to the crib, or sitting next to the bed. My kid doesn’t scream until you think she’s asleep and make half a motion to move, thus imply that you might leave, and then, the crying. She’s a good faker. She also likes to keep herself awake by doing things like poking herself in the eye and pulling her own hair. Oh, the fun. (((hugs)))
December 9th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Your posts are so well written, and so much fun, that I have all kinds of comments as I go through. But you have so many topics that I keep forgetting them as I go. Don’t tell my sister, but you’re my favorite read.
Some day when Graham is in high school and won’t give you the time of day, you’ll have fun re-reading these posts.
OMG, I saw that Butterscotch Pony in Walmart today. Thank goodness you’d already put up the warning. I steered clear of the display, and was worried about the small, innocent children giving the equine robot what it desired.
But, anyway, I sure hope you can get caught up on your sleep one of these days.
December 11th, 2006 at 12:55 am
That Butterscotch pony scares the living bejesus out of me. Until I realized that 20 years ago, I would have wanted that fake pony with every fiber of my suburban little being. Then I was scared by more than the pony.
But: “our new equine robot overlords” – classic.
December 11th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Delurking to say – damn I’ve been there. We finally taught our 11 1/2 month old to sleep in her crib two weeks ago. I was SO freaking scared/nervous/feeling like a bad mom for even considering just a MODIFIED version of CIO. Thank God it worked! She will sleep in her crib for the first 4 hours of each night now without complaining. Yay!
December 20th, 2006 at 11:42 am
Hi, I just came over here from Babes in Blogland to read this post because Oz told me to, and I always do what Oz says. And it’s funny, my 16 month old is refusing to sleep, too, and I also have that brain defect which will not let me let her CIO, so I’d just decided to put her in her crib and stand there while she cries… hopefully it’ll work better for me than it seems to be working here, but I’m not counting on it.
This post did make me laugh, though. So there’s that.