Anna and Troy’s Weblog

from the “Dear Emerson” letter dated 11/10/09

THE WEEK OF GRUMP

So for the past week and a half or so our house has been invaded by the SICKY ICK. Perhaps invaded is too strong a word, but your Daddy was very sick with the sicky ick. It turned out that the sicky ick was a nasty case of bronchitis and not the piggy ick (swine flu) that everyone has been all freaked out about this season. So that was the good news. The bad news (for me) was that as he was coming down with is sicky ick, we were a little afraid that it was the flu, so he tried as hard as he could to avoid infecting you – which meant that for about a week or so, I had to juggle A LOT of solo baby wrangling, plus a very sick and unhappy husband. SOLO BABY WRANGLING OF A TEETHING GRUMPY BABY! Needless to say, the house on Sugar Tree was not the happiest place to be last week. There was a definite dearth of flowers and sunshine. There were no chirping little birds singing sweetly or rainbows across our front lawn. It was the week of GRUMP.

On one particular day, you and I were having our daily “battle of the nap.” Lately, I have been pretty successful at getting you to take a really good morning nap (1-2 hours); although, it still necessitates that I sleep with you. My theory has been that if I get you acclimated to the timing of the nap, then I can eventually wean you off of having to be directly next to my body in order to take said nap. So on this particular day in the week of GRUMP, I had successfully gotten you to sleep, and I decided that I was going to try to sneak away, and do something ridiculous and indulgent – like drink tequila shots and dance on the kitchen table – or take a shower. But before I had the chance, GUESS WHAT?!? You woke up. Nap time logged – 20 minutes.

So I went back into your room and thought to myself, “She really is SO tired. Maybe she will sleep some more.” So I nursed you a bit, but you just wouldn’t doze off….but you looked SO sleepy. So I thought to myself, “Maybe I will try to just put her in her crib and see what happens. Maybe the sleep training books are right. Maybe she will fuss a bit and then just fall asleep. She really is SO tired.” So I put you in your crib, kissed you, told you nighty night, quietly left your room, and waited.

At first you babbled to yourself. I waited. You fussed and whined. I waited.  Then you cried. Still, I waited. You fussed & cried for maybe 3-5 minutes. Then you SCREAMED. Full on, no holding back – SCREAMING LIKE YOUR FINGERNAILS WERE BEING TORN OFF BY A PACK OF RABID WOLVERINES. Here and now, I admit – I confess – I could only take the SCREAMING for a few minutes. Less than five. Probably like three. I just can’t handle the SCREAMING. It is so tragic, so agonizing. Whatever the reason, you were clearly BESIDE YOURSELF. I went in and got you. And here is where the story gets CRAZY because you were SO upset that you threw a full on screaming tantrum for AN HOUR. It took me an entire HOUR to get you calmed down – after which, you fell asleep. And I thought to myself, “She must be SO exhausted from that FULL HOUR OF SCREAMING that she will crash out for at least an hour or two.” GUESS WHAT?!?! You woke up. Nap time logged – 20 minutes (40 minutes total)

The crazy thing about the screaming tantrum is that you NEVER do that, at least not when your Dad or I are there. You will fuss, whine, and even cry a bit, but NEVER that full on inconsolable hysterical screaming crying.

When you woke up from your second little cat nap I went back into your room to get you and I noticed this:

In the three minutes that I had left you in your crib furiously crying, you had managed to EAT YOUR CRIB. I just have to say that none of the infant sleep books that I have read have had any advice that pertains to this particular situation, “what to do when your baby eats her crib.” Just look at those scratch marks ala Silence of the Lambs!

At this point I decided that our foray into sleep training was done for the day. We were going to have to be satisfied with our cumulative 40 minutes. We were just going to go on with our day.

So I picked you up and took you out to the living room , where I discovered that the dog(s) had vomited all over the carpet.

AWESOME.

I think that this story pretty much sums up the Week of GRUMP.