(Not) Mother of the Year

I don't believe I am going to be nominated for Mother of the Year.  And I can pretty easily trace why my nomination will be rejected back to one night last week. 

Conor went to bed pretty easily around 8:00.  (Yay!)  We’ve actually made great progress in the going to bed routine.  He will nurse for a few minutes and then veritably ask to be put down in the crib.  We’ll put him down and he’ll move around a bit to get comfortable and then lie there with his eyes open as he falls asleep.  I’ll pat his back a little, but then I can pretty much walk (sneak) out the door and he’ll go to sleep on his own.  No more back patting until the bliss of sleep arrives.  He’s figured out how to do it himself.  (I do hope this part of the story is inspiring to some sleep deprived mother or father.)

In any case, that’s the good part.  The bad part started around 11:30 when I heard a squeak.  I waited until I heard a few more squeaks and then got up and patted him quickly back down to sleep.  Proud of myself, I went back to sleep.  Twenty minutes later, I hear an insistent cry.  I figure he needs a boob and go in and work my nursing mother charms.  5 to 10 minutes later, he’s back down to sleep.  Great!  The boob works again!!

20 minutes later, he’s crying.  My patience is ebbing.  I go in and nurse him knowing full well he’s not hungry and thus only comfort nursing.  He shows no signs of going back to sleep and I have to pee (being awake for an hour in the middle of the night causes my bladder to work a little harder).  I put him back in the crib pretty much awake and he starts crying.  I’m too cranky to care and go to the bathroom.  Dave rushes in to the screaming baby saying “It’s OK!  You’re not abandoned.”  I think to myself “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” 

I go back in, nurse him, and he goes back to sleep.  For 20 more minutes.  At which point he starts crying again. 

Here is why I will never be Mother of The Year.

1)  “FUCK”, I hatefully hiss into the air as I get up for the fourth time in one and a half hours. 

2)  I finally figure out the child needs his next dose of Tylenol to help with the teething I’d recognized when I put him to bed earlier.  In fact, he’d had his last does of Tylenol exactly 4 hours before the first wake up! Gee!!!???  I wonder if that had anything to do with his cranky wakeups!??!! 

Guess what?  It did! I gave him the Tylenol with a quick boob chaser and he slept the rest of the night.  How long do I have to have a child before I figure out what’s going on??  How lame do I have to be????  (Clearly less lame than I am!)  

In any case, I have to give a shout out to our friends in the New Parents Club about this story.  The New Parents Club is composed of us and two other couples who we met in childbirth class, who had their children the same time around us, who have lived all over the country (and world), and who are all very tall.  That may not mean much to you, but considering that at 5’8”, I’m the shortest, it means something to us. 

In any case, we tall parents had our One Year Anniversary of the Club on Saturday, an event in which I had entirely too much wine.  We were relating recent misadventures in parenthood to each other and when I told this story, one of the other mothers replied “But you didn’t say Fuck You.”  She paused and repeated “You didn’t say Fuck You.  You could still be nominated.”  

My friends, this is why you need to hang out with other parents in your situation.  A little reality check (and zcceptance!) here and there is good for the parenting soul. 

I’m not writing the acceptance speech yet though…

8:57:22 AM