Going in for the kill

Poor Xander. Not only does he have his first runny nose, he also has his first tooth. With another one on the way.

But as bad as I feel for him, I believe I feel worse for myself. That's right, blogosphere, I am pity-partying my 40 year-old ass while my tiny four month-old is suffering. There. I said it.

The thing is, when Baby is miserable, so is Mommy. Because for the past three nights, this child is up about every hour and a half, all night long. Last night, he was even up twice within an hour. And of course, he wants to nurse the entire time. It gets to where I don't even remember putting him back in the co-sleeper next to our bed. I just wake up and realize he's not on me anymore - until I reach over, once again, and put him back on.

Now, if I had nice, well-behaved older kids, perhaps this would be bearable. Instead, I have raised two vicious, show-no-mercy creatures who, upon sensing with their evil-child radar that Mommy is weak, weak, weak, go in for the kill. By that, I mean they slap each other, call each other names, run upstairs and yell the minute Xander has finally gone down for a nap. And jeebus the whining and the sassiness! ARGH! They don't listen to me at all, probably because they know I'm too tired to knock their heads together.

 
 

And maybe a nocturnal baby combined with his siblings' mutiny wouldn't be so awful. But wait. There's more.

The other night, David was taking the two kids for a run in the jog stroller while I put Xander to bed. Suddenly David comes into the room and announces that he has just snapped our stroller in half by crushing it with the garage door.

Mother. Fucker.

Yes. Let me tell you about this stroller. My friend handed it down to me, which is important, because otherwise I could not afford it. It's a Quinny, and retails for over $600. The only other strollers we have are 1) a snap and go that does not work with our current carseat 2) an awful Combi we got for Sawyer that sucks 3) a Bob single and 4) a Bob duallie revolution (Xander is too young to be in the Bobs).

The Quinny has a frame where you can change out the thing your child rides in. It fits a bassinet, the carseat and the regular stroller seat.

We decided to try out the stroller seat attachment since Xander DESPISES riding in the carseat. It's so bad that I never take him out for a walk since he screams the entire time, and I'm (shockingly) not cold-hearted enough to stick on my headphones and drown him out for three miles.

He LOVED the stroller seat. He got to sit almost straight up and could look around. He barely made a peep on our walk to and from the park. I was stoked because now I could finally exercise! Woohoo!

And that very night, it all came to a crashing halt with the closing of the garage door.

This all explains why, before taking Sage for dance this morning, I frantically searched for my nursing cover, and when I just could not find it, I burst into tears. We left without it (and without a stroller to put Xander in) and two minutes later, David called. He'd found it stuffed into our couch.

I turned around and drove home. There was David, standing on the corner holding the nursing cover like it was a ticking bomb. He gently handed it to me through my window, possibly relieved to see I wasn't having a nervous breakdown.

At least, not today.