The Tired and Cranky Chronicles, Pt. II
Having read Shannon's cautionary tale - it tells us something about contemporary culture that since we saw each other for about 10 seconds when I got home and she left for work, we used the internets to pass along most of the information needed for an evening of child-rearing' - my security forces were prepared for what someone once called "a long painful nightly ritual of bedtime rebellion." We encountered some stiff resistance in the Crib neighborhood, but ultimately the restive population was pacified without bloodshed - though other body fluids were involved.
Slowing the bedtime routine to a glacial pace, Julia and I had a full half hour of quiet stories before she reached the friendly confines of her crib. Downstairs, fifteen minutes of faint murmurs and sighs over the monitor ended with a wail - "Daddy coming in! Daddy coming in!" I hustled up there to find an immensely distraught toddler holding her right hand up in the air - "Fuzz! Fuzz! Getitoff! Getitoff!" I soothed her and showed her how to rub the fuzz - which originated in the scalp of her beloved oversized toy monkey, Mike - off on her bedsheet. She quieted down. I went back downstairs.
Ten minutes later, another wail erupted from the near silence, the kind of zero-to-sixty scream that indicates massive resistance to sleep. More "Daddy coming in! Daddy coming in!" This time had her left hand in the air, and she was crying and yelling, "Whatizit? Getitoff! Whatizit? Getitoff!" I looked down at her finger to find a distressingly large and solid wad of snot on the very tip. My first thought was, "This seems familiar..." My second thought was, "Where are the Target-brand facial tissues?" Once these key items located, I cleaned Julia's finger and then wiped her nose and her toy kitty's as well. (I think this was an attempt to pin the snot on the kitty.) As I finished my amateur veterinary care, I told her it was nighttime and all her friends were asleep and boy were Grover and Ernie sleepy, too. Back downstairs, I heard a few more halfhearted recitations of the alphabet, then nothing. Elapsed time from entering the crib to entering slumberland: 45 minutes. It could be worse. It could be much, much worse.
Slowing the bedtime routine to a glacial pace, Julia and I had a full half hour of quiet stories before she reached the friendly confines of her crib. Downstairs, fifteen minutes of faint murmurs and sighs over the monitor ended with a wail - "Daddy coming in! Daddy coming in!" I hustled up there to find an immensely distraught toddler holding her right hand up in the air - "Fuzz! Fuzz! Getitoff! Getitoff!" I soothed her and showed her how to rub the fuzz - which originated in the scalp of her beloved oversized toy monkey, Mike - off on her bedsheet. She quieted down. I went back downstairs.
Ten minutes later, another wail erupted from the near silence, the kind of zero-to-sixty scream that indicates massive resistance to sleep. More "Daddy coming in! Daddy coming in!" This time had her left hand in the air, and she was crying and yelling, "Whatizit? Getitoff! Whatizit? Getitoff!" I looked down at her finger to find a distressingly large and solid wad of snot on the very tip. My first thought was, "This seems familiar..." My second thought was, "Where are the Target-brand facial tissues?" Once these key items located, I cleaned Julia's finger and then wiped her nose and her toy kitty's as well. (I think this was an attempt to pin the snot on the kitty.) As I finished my amateur veterinary care, I told her it was nighttime and all her friends were asleep and boy were Grover and Ernie sleepy, too. Back downstairs, I heard a few more halfhearted recitations of the alphabet, then nothing. Elapsed time from entering the crib to entering slumberland: 45 minutes. It could be worse. It could be much, much worse.
posted by Christopher Tassava at Wednesday, May 31, 2006
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