Wit

At my wit’s end. I had no idea what that expression really meant until I had a daughter. It was
just another cliché people used to explain that they were exhausted by a person or situation. But, I think until a person has a nine-month old daughter that shrills incessantly and un-endingly for
three days for no reason what-so-ever you cannot have a true understanding of what it is to reach the furthest end point of your wit. No, this is not the literary use of exaggeration to make a point. Unless she is being held and endlessly walked to and fro she has screamed since Saturday morning only taking breaks for bottles, spoonful’s of mush, short naps that would be preceded and concluded with ear- shattering screaming and – at night. Yesterday, my Mother-In-Law watched the children so Elissa and I could take a nap – bless her soul – and by the time I relieved her two hours later she was like a broken women. Ruthie had beaten her sweet-loving Nana down to an exhausted, mumbling mess that could only be matched by the little girl’s incoherent bleary-eyed parents. Perhaps, this is teething or she is possessed by some sort of screaming demon, but nothing seems to work for long. Even my go-to favorites are short lived. Zerberts on her belly, tickling, rocking back-and-forth, singing anything and everything, crawling after our cat and pulling out her fur – they all get brushed aside like yesterday’s news.

Perhaps I need to up my game, where’s my credit card? Maybe its diamond jewelry and gold she’s after. Anything – I’ll do anything!!!!!

The swings have arrived!!!!

Dinner Time!

Toilet With a View

In addition to Women’s History Month, National Craft Month and Irish American Heritage Month - in our household, March has clearly become the month of the hypocrite. With a dark sense of irony and shame I drove my daughter around our neighborhood at 2 am last night in the pleading hope that she would stop her incessant, endless, pain-filled, non-stop, ear shattering, head splitting, sleep interrupting crying and go the #@$& to sleep!

This story actually begins as Elissa and I sat on the couch pre baby (ies) watching a Toyota (I think) commercial. To quickly summarize: In the commercial a Father was driving his baby around in the hopes that she would finally fall asleep… I think the exact quote one of us said was, “Are you kidding me, that’s insane that someone would drive in circles like that to get their kid to sleep, they are clearly awful parents and complete idiots.”

At around 1:30 am her fever had finally gone down from 102 but she was still clearly miserable and in much discomfort and would not settle down. We tried bottles of formula, water, coke, pepsi, sprite, 7up apple juice, V8, fresh squeezed lemonade she would not drink a drop.

Like a D-List version of America’s Got Talent we walked her endlessly around the house shushing and singing any and every song that came to mind. We watched Fox news, South Park, MTV, Sesame Street and the only thing to make a dent was Carlito’s Way on BET (I guess she likes gangster movies) which calmed her down for about half an hour.

But no matter how much we begged and pleaded with her, we had to resort to the trusty Volkswagen and wouldn't you know it, it worked. I was barely out of the driveway and the crying stopped and after ¼ mile she was asleep. I did two miles around the neighborhood before pulling in. I gingerly took her out of the car tip toed to the house and that damn squeaky screen door brought me to me knees, NOOOOOOOOOOOO, her eyes popped open as soon as it started to squeak and I was toast.

Eventually, she gave in and settled down to sleep, but not before teaching us a lesson that she and her brother would make us eat our words on every foolhardy parenting critique we had ever made before they were born!

It was probably just after we finished moving the table that I realized what a true and complete hypocrite I had become. You see, in the years pre-baby (ies) Elissa and I would scoff at our friends who had turned their beautiful well-decorated, well-furnished homes over to becoming complete and total play pens, homages to their children, if you will. We would ridicule them on our drive home - "how ridiculous that their kids rule the house, I can’t count the number of toys I inadvertently stepped on. I think I even trounced on a child, by accident, but who could tell from all the stuff."

You see, we weren’t moving the table, to make more room for new contemporary furniture from Macy’s, far from it! We were making a more wide-open space for Ethan and Ruthie to play bumber cars in their walkers so they wouldn’t feel confined to the living rooms space, kitchen and long hallway they already had access to. Enjoy the video!