Weasel Of Doom

I spent all weekend at work, with short forays home for dinner, lunch, and sleep. B. watched the kids (and did a wonderful job).

Me: “Thank you for watching the kids all weekend. I know it’s hard. I owe you.”
B.: “Oh, do you EVER. Probably the only way you CAN pay me back is if you install a trapeze [in the bedroom]….”

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B. is teaching D. that “No” means “You are not getting whatever it is you just said ‘No’ to.” D. seems to think that “No” means “yes” in certain situations. So there is B., asking D. all those leading questions:

B.: “D., do you want milk?”
D.: “NO”
B.: “D., do you want beans?”
D.: “NO”
B.: “D., do you want bread pudding?”
D.: “nooooo…. BREAD PUDDING, BREAD PUDDING!!!!!”
B.: “Well, you can’t have bread pudding.”
D.: “BREAD PUDDING, BREAD PUDDING, BREAD PUDDING, BREAD PUDDING!!!!!”
B.: “Nope, can’t have it.”
Me: “Hmmm, that’s a bit mean. To put it in terms you will relate to, it’s like me asking you if you want to have sex and then saying that you can’t have it when you answer ‘yes’.”

S. got cranky around 8:15 pm. And when he gets cranky, he starts to cry, more so than usual, and over every little thing. A toy fell down? Time to dissolve into hysterics. Parents dared to step away to another room? Cue heartbroken screaming. Things are not going according to S.’s plan, and he makes his screaming displeasure known.

I took him upstairs, got him into jammies, offered boob, asked B. to take the opportunity to trim little claws (we find that the happy hour at The Bra Bar is the best time for that kind of personal space violation). For two minutes, happiness reigned. Then I made the mistake of transferring S. to the other boob. Unbeknownst to me, while the left boob is S.’s friend, the right one is a dastardly evil that needs to be destroyed at all costs. By lots and lots of screaming, apparently. I tried to offer the left boob again, as a gesture of reconciliation. S. was not interested. I tried holding, snuggling, bouncing, playing – ditto. He had worked himself up into a screaming fit, and did not want to be cajoled out of it.

Unfortunately for S., crying when things don’t go his way has been his modus operandi for months now, and we learned to ignore it to a degree – it was either that or going insane. So I kissed him, and put into the crib, and left for a while. The screaming continued unabated for ten minutes: loud, heart-breaking shrieks. Then, without any transition period, silence.

I went back into the bedroom. S. was stretched on the mattress, half-asleep, but started to whimper as soon as I rubbed his back, as if to remind me that he was still unhappy, and would complain more if he had the energy. I took him out and he snuggled into my shoulder, content. I held him while his whimpers turned into snores, and put him back to bed, where he promptly rolled onto his tummy and pushed his butt up in the air, without waking up, as if the nuclear meltdown of ten minutes prior happened to some other child.