THE PERFECT BABY TAKES A NIGHT OFF

Heyyyy....ummmm....you!

Man ... I woulda updated yesterday, but uhhhhh...well ... y'see....I've got this baby now, y'see....and ummmmm....he's perfect and all, just like I've been saying for the last 2.5 weeks ... but uhhhhh...Saturday night...ummmmm...well ...

.....Alright...the little shit decided he wanted to stay up ALL FUCKING NIGHT Saturday night.

I went to bed at 10 p.m. Saturday night. Susie was right behind me with Andy in her arms.

I passed out.

At 10:30, I heard a piercing scream.

Now then ... I'm not the most alert guy in the world after 30 minutes of sleep. My brain is disoriented and my nervous system is full of holes. I'm in no condition to serve as a moderator in any debate, let's put it that way.

So when I hear the scream, I look over to Susie and give her a look that says "Is the house on fire?"

Susie confirms that the scream belonged to my perfect son.

Okay. It's Saturday night. No big deal. I'll just get up and soothe the little guy.

I get up, pick him up out of his cradle and the little guy has just LOST IT. He's screaming like he'd just been clawed by a monster. I pat his back, lay back down in bed with him on my chest, pull the covers up and rub his back.

This works great. After 15 minutes, he's out like a light. This is cool. Now I can go back to sleep.

I get out of bed, put him BACK in his cradle and slide back under the sheets.

Five minutes later.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

Okay. No big deal. It's Saturday night. I'll just get him up and we'll go out to the den and watch Saturday Night Live together for the first time.

I get him, he quiets down instantly, we go out to the den and he wants to play "Let's Look At Every Single Thing In The House Individually".

So his neck is twisting like Chubby Checker, trying to see everything in the room. We get up and walk around the house so he can check everything out. He's probably making mental notes over what's been baby-proofed and what hasn't so when the time comes, he can destroy my home.

We sit up until about midnight. He's seemed to have fallen asleep at midnight so we trek back to the bedroom, I put him down in his cradle and slide once again between the sheets.

Five minutes later.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

This time, Susie gets up because by now the little bastard is ready to be fed.

So the television is turned on and the three of us watch the weekend edition of "Entertainment Tonight-- TV's biggest scandals".

At 1 a.m., he's STILL eating.

He falls asleep in her arms by about 1:15 a.m. He gets put back into the cradle, the TV is turned off...the party's officially over.

Five minutes later.

"YEEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!"

Okay ... now I'm a little irritated. It may be Saturday night, but I still have things to do on Sunday, dammit.

I get Jr. out of his cradle and we go out to the den for his first stern lecture from his father.

"Look," I tell him quietly. "We need to get some sleep here. I know you're the world's most adorable baby and that you have the qualifications to eventually be the world's most perfect baby. But you're really screwing up your average here by keeping me up all night. So let's try to cool it down and go back in there and get some sleep. Comprende, Senor?"

By this point, he's out like a light. My job is done so we head back into the bedroom. He gets in the cradle and I slide beneath the....

"WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

Okay ... my fault. I forgot to change the diaper. How silly of me.

I get up, I change the diaper. But now that he's gone through a traumatic diaper change (now that I think about it...every diaper change for this kid is traumatic in his eyes...he enjoys very few of them), he's WIDE AWAKE and wants to just ... you know...hang out. Kick back...listen to a little MC Fisher Price, you know...old school Fisher Price...like "Farmer In The Dell" and "Three Blind Mice" shiznit...keepin' it real with some KICKIN' MC Fisher Price.

It's now after 2 a.m. I want to go to sleep. He wants to hear "Old McDonald" one more time.

He wins. He wins every fight he starts in this house. He knows this already.

So he's in his crib, which is not his bed yet, but his play area. All his toys are in there including his Kick and Play Piano which just positively rocks in his eyes.

So I sit in the glider and start having dreams about farmers cutting the tails off of blind mice while he jams himself out.

I remember looking at the clock and it was 2:33 a.m. I felt like I had been drugged while he kicked and thrust his tiny little fists in the air to the music.

The next time I looked at the clock it was 2:52. The music was still playing, but Andy was dead to the world. He kicked all that energy out.

We go back to our bedroom. The only reason I removed him from his crib and put him in his cradle is because I was delerious. Any quick-witted person would have noticed that he was sleeping PEACEFULLY in his crib...just leave him there.

Well...I had the wits of a lumbering rhino. I picked his happy ass up.

He's put in his crib, I run QUICKLY to my side of the bed, slide beneath the sheets and get all toasty warm, trying to fall back asleep.

Five minutes later...

"Uhhhh...guys. Can somebody get me up here? I seem to have pissed myself. Must have been the tunes gettin' me all worked up or something."

I relented. I told Susie I had been up all night so far with the little urchin...she HAD to take it from here.

She got up with him, took him BACK to his room, changed him and began nursing him.

I was too wound up to fall back asleep. I got up and made us some peanut butter sandwiches and we sat up and quietly bitched about the kid's fortitude for an hour until he fell asleep.

We got back into bed at 4:15 a.m. I probably fell asleep by 4:30 and was awoke at 6 by a panting dog who HAD to be walked RIGHT NOW because a cat had apparently been walking around in our front yard and there was a SLIM CHANCE that the cat left its scent somewhere in the neighborhood.

So I got 90 minutes of sleep. By 7 a.m., Andy was crying and ready to check out the house again. We checked out the house, he was fed and the little bastard slept most of yesterday away.

We learned our lesson though. When he woke up from a nap about 5 p.m., we decided that he was NOT going back to sleep for at least five hours...maybe seven.

It was kinda funny. After being fed and changed, he was ready to go back to sleep.

Uh-uh.

We kept stimulating him with toys and activity mats and kick and play pianos and old school Fisher Price.

By 10 p.m., that little guy was BEGGING for us to leave him alone so he could go back to sleep.

Yeah, bud.

I know how THAT can be.

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