Meanwhile…

Hey good news! Everyone who commented on my last post gets a prize! ONE FULL DAY with Fresco!

I figure after 2 weeks I will want him in my house again.

Can’t think of a new way to phrase this. That baby is LOUD. Previously it was kind of endearing. Shows character. Makes him *him*. Last week, the day after his vaccinations, he spent the day being clingy and whiny and when he gets clingy and whiny, he shouts. Shouts if you put him down, shouts if he can’t see you anymore, shouts if he wants a toy and can’t get the toy. I am not used to this. Trombone would cry. I figured he was normal – I have heard that babies cry. The experiment is not a fair one; when was at home with Trombone crying, there was no one simultaneously saying, “Can I have a treat? Can I have a treat? Can I have a treat NOW? Can I have an Aero bar?” (thank you, Halloween.) So it was stressful, the crying, but at least I was only accountable to me and the infant. And I don’t remember Trombone being so fretful all day long like this.

Also, Trombone slept through the night at an early age. This baby still wakes up twice a night. I am plenty tired and short-tempered on a good day and then, THEN I spend the day being shouted at? And it’s not a “hey, could I get some service?” sort of shout. It’s a “HEY BITCH, WHERE MY FUN AT?” sort of shout. It is imperious and it echoes and it makes everyone around it cringe. Yes, I have that shouting baby at the grocery store. A million apologies.

So he did it this past Thursday. All day. But Friday – Sunday it was all sunshine and rainbows again so I figured Thursday was due to the vaccinations. Then Monday. Shouting. Tuesday. Shouting. This morning, I woke to the sound of shouting. I felt like a big piece of glass about to shatter into a million pieces. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t smile, couldn’t do anything but hold the baby, jam the soother in his mouth, keep him from shouting.

Who gets up at 5 am just to shout? It’s not civilized.

Possible causes of Shoutapalooza include: teething. Can’t quite crawl. Bored. Tummyache from apricots. Diaper rash.

The shouting makes me tense. It makes Trombone tense. It makes me more tense with Trombone and vice versa. Everything is aggressive and in-your-face and like we are living at CNN on the first day of a new war. One day was rough. Three has nearly killed me. I am hopeful there will not be four.

We walked to the Most Depressing Mall in the Universe this morning. It is getting decked for Christmas, which means a Santa’s village and a bunch of mid-mall vending tables. Mostly the vendors are for hand-sewn dishrags and quilt raffles but there was one for Dead Sea Skin Products. I felt bad for them. There was a big, exciting booth and several hotties of both sexes, waiting to accost passers-by with “Would you like a sample of our new skin regime?” but the only passers-by, of course, are very old people, very poor people in from the cold and very addled, rather rude people like me.

I was sitting on a bench, eating my Bacon N Egger while Trombone ate his ham and cheese croissant (we compromised on a “healthy” treat; hey it’s better than an Aero bar) and Fresco looked at the lights. A middle aged guy, tall and gangly with huge sneakers and really big hair stopped to say hi. “Is this your family?” he said. He spoke like he had a hearing impairment. I said yes. “It’s good,” he said. “I grew up with foster families. Real family is better.”

Choose your own ending. Both of these are true things I thought:

1. My heart seized. You stupid woman, I thought. Just appreciate your damn babies and shut up.

2. So I decided to keep the shouting baby after all.