3…2…1… Meltdown!
February 9, 2005
It happened yesterday, the moment both Jen and I had been waiting for, a complete HBomb meltdown. There’s nothing better to nail home the fact that you cannot logically reason with a newborn/infant like a meltdown. Oh, and the timing couldn’t have been more aprapos, as it it began as we were watching 24 (there are impending nuclear meltdowns in the plot) on our DVR.
But really, it began around 3 when I got home from work. HBomb had been sleeping for 15 minutes, which made a grand total of 3 hours in the last 12. He woke up and began to get his cry on. We were able to calm him down with some vintage formula and he started the closing the eye thing. He kinda drifted in and out of sleep while Jen made dinner — a delicious chicken breast in a leek cream sauce — and was pretty calm.
At about 5:45 I set HBomb down in the bassinet to free up my hands for dinner. Jen and I decided that if he continued to sleep until 6 we would start 24. Now the beauty of the DVR is that you can stop, pause, restart and see where you are in the program, so after 11 minutes, according to the DVR, HBomb’s condition went from sleep to fussy. Jen grabbed him so I could quickly scarf down some chicken, and then we did the hand-off. We gave him the bottle in hopes of calming him, but his condition quickly escalated to critical.
Condition Critical.
After about 45 minutes of subdued crying and 15 minutes of crazy infant bawling, Jen dialed the magic number of the pediatrician fairy. Surely, this was not normal. The person on the other end told us that someone would call and we should take his temperature. There has got to be a better way to take an infants temperature than sticking a thermometer up his ass. There just has to be. We read the thermometer literature and it assured us that we could put it under his arm. Sounded better than option one. Under arm it went. 97.8 degrees. Normal. Ok, so that wasn’t a problem. HBombs inconsolable crying, on the other hand, was.
The phone rang. It was a doctor or nurse or nurse practitioneror doctor nurse or something returning Jen call. Jen explained the situation to the whoever. Hayes hadn’t been sleeping, was incolsolable, wouldn’t eat, etc.. The nurse-whatever said Jen sounded tired and the best thing to do was to — GET THIS — involve her husband so Jen could get some rest. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I guess she was going to have to get me off the couch with my Bud Light and nachos and tear me away from the Celtics to make me help her. Yup. Right. I can’t possible be the only man in the Boston area that this woman has heard of who is taking an active part in his child’s life. From reading other daddy blogs and Metrodad’s post yesterday, I know I’m not the only caring father out there. I mean COME ON!
Jen explained to her in no uncertain terms that I was, infact, totally involved and was actually holding our child as she was on the phone. Further, she explained, we both were really tired. The doctor practitioner was calm, even after clearly insulting us, and gave Jen some advice — try to calm him down, feed him and then get him straight to bed. (Marge:”Ok Homer, you’re over stimulated, let’s get some beer in you and get you straight to bed.” Homer: “Beer! Beer! Beer! Bed! Bed! Bed!”) It worked.
At 8:15 HBomb was sleeping soundly in his bassinet in our bedroom and we ventured out to the living area to finish up our wine and 24.
I was the first one up for his feeding at 11:30. He was back asleep at 12. Back asleep! Take that, lack of confidence (see post below). Jen, on the other hand was not as lucky. She was up for the second feeding, and by virtue of being wide awake when he was in need of a third at 4AM, she was up for that too. It was a brutal twist of fate.
Condition Critical.
HBomb blew up again. This time it was almost immediate. Jen left the room to change him, returned and he was on high-volume, red-faced wailing. It took her more than an hour to settle him back down and get him to bed, but Jen was wired.
Which led to this morning. 6:15, HBomb is making sleep noises including crying, yelping and chirping. I wake up and begin to get out of bed. He stops. 6:30, HBomb is making sleep noises including crying, yelping and chirping. 6:45, well, you get the point. At one point I actually woke up thinking I was crying, only to realize it was HBomb sleep crying.
At 7:30 I roll out of bed to hit the shower and get ready for work. Didn’t last. As I’m turning the shower on, the wailing begins in earnest. I bolt out of our bathroom to Jen partially out of bed, trying to jiggle the Bugaboo to get him back to sleep. Ain’t working. She mumbles something about her taking care of it. I take a quick look at her and decide that, based on the fact that it looks like she lost a 15 round bare knuckle boxing match only to be hit by a bus as she crossed the street to get home, she needed more sleep.
So… here I am, 2 minutes before 9, unshowered, at work and finishing up cup-o-coffee #3. If I didn’t love the Bomb so and he wasn’t so damn cute, I might… just might… try to put him back. At this point, I’m not sure Jen would complain.