Teeth at 2AM

“Oh yeah, he’s been sleeping through the night for a while now” I would say proudly, like somehow I had anything to do with Dawson’s natural sleep patterns. I could tell a few of the exhausted moms wanted to punch me in the face. “I do NOT miss the newborn stage, up all night, no thank you. I’m so glad that’s over” I smiled, as the half awake moms planned my slow and painful death in their minds.

And that night was the night from hell. He’s teething, so my “great sleeper” was extremely cranky all day, and woke up constantly throughout the night. And it was not just any night. It was the night before Sarah has to go back to work and needs to get a good night’s sleep. He slept through the night every SINGLE night during the summer when she was able and more than willing to help with him, had I needed it. But I didn’t, because “he’s been sleeping through the night for a while now.”

The baby monitor flashed red as the volume in Dawson’s room escalated. I fumbled with my phone to check the time. 2:38 am. I suggested that Sarah move to the guest room so she could get a good nights sleep, because I had a feeling he was going to have a rough night. I trudged up the stairs and picked up my screaming, hot, teething baby. I brought him down to the bedroom and cuddled him close to me. “Do you want to nurse?” I asked hopefully, even though he had weaned himself days before. “Baba!” he screamed. Sarah was already on her way back from the kitchen with a bottle. I heard my pre-baby self confidently saying how I wouldn’t give my baby a bottle in the bed, and made a mental note to try not to talk about things I have no idea about ever again. I gave him the bottle and relished in the 15 minutes of silence. And then the dreaded sound of sucking air. The bottle is gone. Here we go…

My plan was to lay there quietly and still, let him do his thing and get tired and eventually fall back asleep.  He wiggled from my close grasp and began to roll. He must have set a goal to cover every inch of the King size bed with his body, strictly by rolling around. Back and forth, up and down, across my stomach, back across my face. I laid there quietly, didn’t move a muscle. “He’ll calm down, he just needs to find a comfortable spot” I thought to myself. Then, the rolling stopped. I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holidng and closed my eyes to fall asleep.

“PETE!” he said with the most awake voice I’ve ever heard. Pete, his favorite character from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was obviously on his mind. He sounded like it was the middle of the afternoon and he was ready to play. I tried not to get impatient. “Day Duh” he said, and I could tell he was smiling. Daisy Duck.

“Mee Mou” Mickey Mouse

“Minnie!”

“Pete!”

I couldn’t help but smile. There we were, 2 something in the morning, pitch black, rolling around and naming characters from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. This was going to be a long night.

I tried to redirect him. I tried holding him close to me. I tried singing, I even made up a story about how a frog fell in love with a squirrel and spent every day trying to eat nuts and climb trees so Rosie the squirrel would fall in love with him. The more I tried, the more he cried.

And then I got a size 5 foot to the throat. He was back to rolling around, and my neck got a swift kick. I was tired, I was tired of being patient, and I just got kicked in the throat.

“So my soul will wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait…” I sang quietly. Sing to him so you don’t throw him out the window.

I fumbled with the phone again. 3:15. There was no end in sight.

“I feel bad for the guy. He’s got bones puncturing his gums. Are teeth bones? What are teeth? What are they….”

Boom

He fell off the bed. In the darkness, I leapt off the bed and scooped up the screaming baby. I turned the bathroom light on and checked for blood or bruises. Nothing. I sat on the edge of the bed and rocked him until his sobs stopped. Just get up and watch TV, the exhausted side of me begged. No, stay strong. 3:30 is not wake up time. He will fall back asleep, just hang in there.

We laid back down and he crawled around the bed. Over my face, standing up and stepping over my legs, dive-bombing into the pillows. And then I felt him crawl towards the bottom of the bed. He crawled in between my legs, with his head towards the foot of the bed. And it was still. And it was silent. And I waited. And waited. Is he sleeping? I reached slowly to the nightstand to grab my phone. My plan was to shine my phone down towards the end of the bed to see if he was sleeping. I patted the nightstand for the phone, felt the cord and followed the cord with my fingers to find the phone. As I fished the cord up, the cord came out of the phone and the phone dropped onto the nightstand with a loud thud. The calm, quite, still lump at the bottom of the bed shot up.

Remind me to punch myself in the face, I thought, as I laid my defeated head back on the pillow. But to my surprise, he laid back down and was as still as ever.

I quietly picked up my phone. 4:13. He may be sleeping upside down at the bottom of the bed, but he’s sleeping, and before I knew it, I was too.

In the morning, I dragged my exhausted body out of bed and managed to get him set up with Cherrios and Mickey Mouse before collapsing on the couch. Through my half opened eye lids I saw a happy, awake and energized little boy who I would get kicked in the throat a hundred times for, without question. And I looked forward to the day ahead; fever, drool, crankiness and all.