I've heard the phrase 'at wits end' several times. While I've been stressed at many time in my life, I never knew exactly what it meant... or, rather, when it happens. The answer, I've discovered, is 3:43am.
Our little buddy has been in a mood this weekend. He also seems to have taken a conscious dislike to his provided sleeping accommodations. While we're still engaged in the battle of wills in terms of schedules, last night I put him down around 10:15pm and I went to bed about an hour later. At 1:30, the wailing began. It being the weekend and wanting my lovely wife to get as much sleep as possible, I got up to tend to smidget's needs. Optimistically, I thought we'd feed, I'd watch a recorded episode of The West Wing, and perhaps within an hour I'd be blissfully back in bed.
Not so.
After an hour, and Little Z slumbering in my arm (which had fallen asleep quite some time earlier) I figured the time was ripe and up we went. As gently as I could, I lowered him into his crib. As soon as his head touched the mattress and I let go, he went from 0 to 100 in a split second. No amount of consoling or musical mobiles would settle him... Until, grumbling, I bring him back downstairs, put the bottle in his mouth, and he promptly falls asleep.
This went on, as a groundhog-day cycle, for 2.5hours. At 3:43am, after striving to calm our troubled little hero by rocking in the chair... I recalled the teacher of our pre-natal class saying "at times, you will feel an uncontrollable urge to shake your baby". I remember thinking at the time "well gee, that seems harsh". I now know that feeling. Now don't get me wrong, I love this little bundle of wails more than anything... but at 3:43am when he's clearly trying to piss me off, that urge passes through you.
15 minutes later, my wife came to rescue me. Fortunately, by this point, she'd had 5 or 6 hours of much-needed sleep. She found me, at 4:03am, 20 minutes into wits end.
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