Fatherhood Slaps Me Across The Face Like An Escaped Wild Monkey Searching For Bananas

And there I was.  Sound asleep in bed.  It was around 6:45 in the morning and I awoke to our dog staring up at me crying and whining.  Oh God.  Don’t tell me.  You see, our dog was never the crying-whining type.  But since having Monkey, he must have noticed how when Monkey cries, he gets our attention.

So, over the last few months our dog has regressed and turned into a baby.  He drives us crazy with all of his whining lately.  And like most dogs who may cry because they need to go outside in the morning, our dog cries for a different reason…

Milk.  Our dog is completely addicted to milk.  You’d swear it was laced with opium or crack or something.  He goes nuts for it in the morning, and he can’t get enough of it.  I don’t know when this started exactly, but it was shortly after Monkey was born.

I tried to drift back to sleep, but Fido had other ideas.  He was doing everything he could to wake me up.  And he succeeded.

I pulled myself out of bed while Jane laid there sound asleep.  Normally Jane is the first one up around 7 AM most mornings and takes care of Monkey’s feeding, plays with him, and puts him down for his morning nap while I sleep.  It’s a system that works very well because I’m always up until the wee hours of the morning working.

Well this morning, since I was up thanks to our milk-addicted dog, I decided I’ll give Jane a break this morning and let her sleep in.  I got out of bed, picked up our crazy dog, and quietly shut the door.  The moment I set Fido down, he ran over to the bowl and danced around in circles.  Urrrgh… It’s way too early for this, I thought.

I looked in the fridge and there was a tiny bit of milk left.  Fido saw the container and went wild like some guy who was locked up in prison for 36-years, gets released, and then walks into a strip club.  He could barely contain himself!

As the milk started pouring into his bowl his tongue couldn’t go fast enough.  He guzzled the milk as fast as it came out.  When I stood back up, Monkey started making his “I’m waking up” noises.  I took a deep breath, preparing for what I knew was going to be a long morning.  I stood there motionless for nearly a minute and then Monkey let out a little cry, saying, “OK, I’m up. Come change me, feed me, play with me, feed me, and then play with me again, and feed me, and maybe put me down for a nap”.

I walked into Monkey’s room and he looked up at me and gave me the biggest smile in the world. Awwwe.  My little buddy!  He was so excited to see me as I was so excited to see him.  He looked at me and smiled like he hadn’t seen me in years.  I changed his diaper, made a bottle, and sat down to feed our little Monkey.

Suddenly, I hear a cry.  I looked down at my feet and there was Fido.  Now either wanting his breakfast or to go outside.  Urgh, sorry Fido, but my hands are full right now.

So it had been awhile since I did the whole “morning baby duty” thing, so I wasn’t 100% sure of the order that Jane did everything.  Did she feed Monkey and then put him in his swing?  Did she play with him after?  Did he go into his jump-a-roo?  Shoot.  I couldn’t remember the order.  Oh well.  I finished feeding Monkey and put him in his jump-a-roo, fed Fido his normal food, let him out, and Monkey was starting to get fussy in his jump-a-roo.  I then took him out, held him, and then put him in his swing because he was yawning.

Ah yes, the swing after feeding. That’s it.  Within seconds of putting him down in his swing he started crying.  Urgh.  OK.  Wrong choice.  I picked Monkey out of his swing and laid him back down in his crib.  Yes, that’s it.  Jane must put Monkey in his crib for a nap after his morning feeding.  I laid him down, turned on his mobile, and he seemed content.  Whew!   Finally I guess right.

I slowly walked out of his room, went into the kitchen, and put in a couple of sliced of bread into the toaster.  Before the toast had a chance to pop up, a big “Whhaaaaaa!” came bellowing out of Monkey’s room.  I went in there and he had already managed to go from his back on the left side of the crib to his stomach on the right side.  What the!?  How in the heck did he do that?  I reached over, picked Monkey up and realized that Jane must play with Monkey for awhile before his nap.

I put Monkey on the floor with his toys all around him, and laid down next to him.  I sang to him, we played music, played blocks, played with Scout, a truck, some other toys, I made faces, I smiled, I laughed, all of which worked like a charm for 25 minutes.  All the while I might add our dog kept walking in and out of his room crying like a little baby.  I swear it’s like we have 2 babies in the house!

Hmmm… bottle # 2 time I thought.  I picked Monkey up, and sat him down as I went to make a bottle, but he wanted no part of that.  So I was stuck holding Monkey while I tried to make a bottle one-handed.  I see Jane do it all the time, so I figured it was easy.  Ha.  Not exactly.  I really needed two hands so I put Monkey in his Bumbo seat thing and tried to keep him entertained while his bottle was warming up.

How in the heck Jane does this each and every single morning, I’ll never know.  She’s Super Woman I think.  There were about 28 times I almost brought Monkey into the bedroom and said, “Help!”

Anyway, at this point Money was getting fussy again and I was afraid he was going to wake Jane up. So I did what anyone would do in this situation and took the box that our coffee comes in and put it on my head.  It just barely fit and to my surprise thanks to the reflection of myself on the microwave door, it looked like a strange hat that you’d see someone wearing on New Year’s Eve.  Don’t ask me how.  It just did.

As I danced around the kitchen and made faces to Money wearing a coffee box on my head, all was going great.  Monkey was entertained.  I must have scared our dog off because of my wild dancing and new hat, and the bottle was just about done.  I took the bottle out, grabbed Monkey, and started to walk over to the couch.

Now I could only imagine what I looked like.  Thanks to the flap hanging down over my forehead, I couldn’t see more than five feet in front of me… and I couldn’t see that Jane was peeking around the corner at me…

As I sat on the couch with Monkey on one arm, the bottle in the other, and a coffee box on top of my head, I hear, “You won the Best Husband in the World Award for letting me sleep in, but what in the heck do you have on your head!?” I jumped, looked up, and there was Jane just staring at me laughing.  I didn’t know what to say.  I just smiled and said, “this has been a crazy morning.”

So that’s how my day began.  And come to find out, Monkey is always up for two hours before his second bottle.  No wonder he didn’t want to be in his swing.  No wonder he didn’t want to be back in his crib.  No wonder he was only happy for a few minutes in his jump-a-roo thing.  And no wonder why he was cool playing with me for 25-minutes on the floor in his room.  OK, I got the morning schedule down now.  And believe me, I won’t forget it!

So yeah, fatherhood slapped me across the face this AM.  And as usual, my respect for my beautiful Mommy Jane went up even more because I see what she does every morning.  But for her, she’s got it down to a perfect little system that works for both her and Monkey with no problems.  Toss half-sleeping Tarzan into the mix – and you’ve got the makings of a fussy baby off his schedule and a frustrated clueless daddy – trying to remember the schedule Jane has Monkey on that he’s so used to.

And no, my toast never got eaten.  Who likes cold toast anyway?

This morning, I need something more than coffee.  I’m thinking a shot or two will do the trick!  :)  LOL

But hey, I manned up – and it feels good to be a Daddy.

You might also want to read:

1. Our Baby Feeding Schedule: A day in the life of Tarzan, Jane, and Monkey. Welcome to no sleepville.
2. A Monkey for our Monkey: Daddy’s Design Snoogie Seat Reviewed
3. Baby Throwing Up: Monkey Throwing Up Formula Last Night. We Were Scared.
4. Two Month Old Schedule: Three days in the life of little Monkey
5. 10 ways our baby has told me how much he loves me and how to tell if your baby loves you!

Tagged as: baby, fatherhood, sleep