Or…“How I learned to love my own child less than sleep for 10 minutes”.
I’ve been off work since December 21st. During all that time, I got alot of sleep. I didn’t get enough, apparently.
So last night, I went out into what passes for a blizzard in Kentucky to pick-up Joey from his dad’s. I returned to find Whitney had a story for me–Maria had clanged her head on the crib. Hard. In her soft spot. She’d called the Dr., but the Dr. said likely everything would be fine.
Everything was not fine.
At ~2am, Maria awoke, screaming. I fed her a bottle, changed her diaper, rocked her gently, and lay her back down to sleep. She seemed to do her normal “Ah, lovely” sigh, roll over, suck her thumb and doze off.
Everything was not fine.
I made it to the midpoint of the stairs and the same cry loosed from her throat. I found her sitting bolt upright in the crib. So, I picked her up, let her finish off the rest of her bottle (2oz or so of formula), rocked her back to sleep, and lay her back down. By now it was ~3am or so.
Nope, still not fine. By the time I got back to bed, she was screaming. Okay, Mommy’s turn.
Mommy did the same as me for the next hour-and-a-half. No luck. Each time she’d doze off, but each time we put her down, she’d bounce back up screaming.
“Fine, we’ll just let her cry it out,” we decided. Yeah, so 45 minutes of screaming later, I’ve had it, I go up, strip all her P.J.’s off, and take her down to the couch. This really pisses her off.
By now, it’s 5 am, we turn on the news to find Scott County’s called off school for today, and I decide to just let her sleep in my arms in my Lay-Z-Boy. So I sit there until 7 with her dozing fitfully.
Ultimate diagnosis: My daughter has a headache. They gave her some motrin and she’s dozing at home. I got a whole 3 hrs of sleep.