Stay-at-Home Nerd: When Babies Attack!! Oct28

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Stay-at-Home Nerd: When Babies Attack!!

How scary are babies?  Very scary.  Very, very scary.

My baby has the nasty habit of waking up just as I fall asleep.  It doesn’t matter if I’m going down for the night or stealing a nap it’s always the same.  My head hits the pillow I close my eyes, pull the blanket tight, turn to my side, and take a deep breath that I let out slowly as I relax into a state of heavenly slumber.  That’s when the crying starts.  He’s hungry or it’s time to get up.  When I try for the nap there’s usually no assistance available.  As soon as my nap starts, his is over.  I rescue him from his crib and feed him or just watch him play as my heavy lids beg to be closed.  At night it’s different.  My wife is there and she goes to bed before me.  I usually go to bed after his first night feeding to avoid him waking me up this way, but that doesn’t always work.  And, it really didn’t work this past Monday night.

There is a certain kind of parent tired that simply doesn’t compare to cramming for college finals, staying up all night as a kid or even pulling an all-nighter for work.  It’s the kind of tired that makes you think of doing bad things to good people.  I was that kind of tired on Monday and I imagine my wife, who still gets up to breast-feed our son twice a night after 10 months, feels that way all the time.  I’d ask her but she’s sleeping as I write this.  God bless her soul.  Anyway, Monday night I was that kind of tired.  I lay down to sleep and the little bugger woke up.  Thankfully my wife handled it.  She grabbed him from his crib and fed him in the bed.  I was vaguely aware of them both being there as I drifted into glorious slumber – dreams of sugarplums dancing in my head.  That’s when I heard my wife SCREAM OW!!

He bit her nipple.  Can you believe that?  It snapped me awake and I was half way to grabbing my softball bat before I realized what happened.  What do you do in this situation?  He bit my knee once.  I was sitting on my reading chair with my feet up when he crawled over, pulled himself up, and bit my kneecap through my pants.  It hurt like hell and I yelled NO at him so loud that he started crying.  This made me feel like an ass and I spent the next hour making up for it.  It’s a different story for my wife.  She still had to finish feeding him.  Luckily she has two nipples.  I asked if there was anything I could do.  There wasn’t.  I was really, really tired…

So, I went back to sleep and hoped to dream — ahhhhh, the only place where all men are kings.  I wish I remembered what I was dreaming about when he bit her other nipple.  I’m sure it was amazing.  All I remember is the second scream of OW!!  He’s only bit her once before and now it was twice in one night.  I’ve heard of biting the hand that feeds you, but this was ridiculous.  I told my wife it was okay to cry and it was.  I took the baby from her and she went to the bathroom.  I held him on the bed and he fell asleep in my arms.  I thought about biting him just to teach him a lesson, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  When my wife came out of the bathroom I told her that he said he was sorry – he was having a bad dream.  Thought he was running out of milk, something like that.  I put him in his crib where he continued to sleep.  She was okay.  She’s tough. She has a high pain threshold.  She has to to put up with me.  She went right back to sleep.  What else could she do?  I couldn’t fall asleep after that.  I was done.  I stared at the clock for who knows how long until finally I drifted off.  What else can you do when babies attack?

Today’s weight: 299 lbs. (back in the right direction)

featured image credit: dollop