It finally happened. Treicy and I both knew that eventually it would. It had to. It couldn't be avoided. It was the 500 pound gorilla in the room that we refused to acknowledge was there, but that we both knew would someday break out of it's cage and beat the crap out of me with the old car tire that it used as a swing. So what is it that had my panties in a bunch, you ask? It was the worst case scenario that occurred last week. Treicy had to go away on business for a couple of days and I was left to care for our 3 children... alone.
Let's take a moment and really let that last statement sink in shall we? For approximately 48-60 hours I would be the sole person in charge of keeping 3 human beings alive. That can't be legal. There has to be some sort of long government form that I have to fill out first or something, right? Even worse... I was now about to experience the dreaded solo overnight feeding bonanza. I was supposed to feed two babies in the middle of the night... alone. Really? I had better odds of being able to crap a Rolex out of my ass before being able to pull that trick off. Treicy has done it a couple of times before and she said that it was "interesting". well... "interesting" to Treicy equates to 'impossible" for me. That's more responsibility than I've ever had in my life but after 5 months of intense training I can confidently say... I'm not ready. Not by a long shot.
Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't going to be flying 100% solo. It's not like we live in a shed out in the middle of the woods like the Unabomber. We have support. The girls have a daytime nanny that cares for the girls on weekdays while we are at work... but that is only from 8AM to 6PM. That left 14 hours, each night, where the girls were completely and solely in my care. I just had to survive 2 nights. I needed a plan. I needed to stay positive. This was going to be a disaster.
I got home from work early, around 4:30PM, and began my intense preparations... I took a nap. Hey, laugh if you want, but if I've learned one thing during these lat 5 months is that you gotta catch your winks whenever and however you can. I've gone to see the new Star Wars movie 3 times with Esteban since it came out. Am I a fan of the series? Sure, but the reason we've gone 3 times is because I keep falling asleep about halfway through the movie. Hopefully I'll get to see how the movie ends when it comes to HBO later this year. But let's get back to my master plan... after the nanny left at 6, I moved the girls downstairs to the living room and put them in their playpen. The plan was to keep them awake for 3 hours until their 9PM feeding so I bribed Esteban into helping me by preparing his favorite food for dinner... pancakes. It's his all-time favorite and he got so jacked up on sugar that he preformed a 2-hour puppet show for the girls using only his socks and the soundtrack to the movie "Coco". It worked. The girls went right to sleep after their 9PM bottles and Esteban showered and went to bed as well. The house was quiet with sleeping children by 9:30PM... my master plan was about to go in to effect. Big Idea Number 1: I moved their cribs into the master bedroom. I never hear them through the monitors so I cut out the middleman and put them right next to me. Genius, right? Wrong. They kept waking up every 30 minutes. I couldn't figure out why. Their diapers were dry... they weren't hungry... but every time I would fall asleep, 10 minutes later they were crying. It was one of the longest nights of my life. WHY? Could someone please tell me? "It's because of your snoring" said the 8-year-old with a chuckle over Froot Loops the next morning. "It's probably what kept waking them up all night". "Well what about you and Mommy?" I asked. "It doesn't keep you two up." "We're used to it. Mommy says that it's like living next to the airport... after a while, you don't hear the planes anymore. Just give them time. They'll get used to your 747s eventually."
Sigh... That was horrible. I was going to need a new plan.
There were no puppet musicals on the second night. Esteban was distracted by his I-Pad the entire evening and I was left to entertain them on my own. They were cranky and groggy. Catalina kept nodding off and I kept blowing kissy farts on her belly in order to make her giggle so she would wake up. Renata was tired and not in the mood for any of my kissy fart nonsense. The ferocity and volume of the tantrum that she threw was monumental and epic. The cat didn't come out of her hiding place in the guest room closet for 2 days afterwards. It was rough, however the plan worked to perfection because Renata's fit kept them both awake and as soon as they had their 9PM bottle they immediately drifted off to sleep. It was time to implement Master Plan #2. I couldn't sleep in the same room with the girls and I still didn't trust myself to hear them through the monitors... so I decided to sleep in Esteban"s room, which is right next to the girl's nursery. My plan was to be proactive and not reactive. That is... I would not wait for them to wake up and cry for their bottle... instead I would set my alarm to 15 minutes before each feeding time and surprise attack them with their bottle before they had a chance to wake up. the midnight feeding was flawless. Both girls drank their milk without ever opening an eye and went immediately back to sleep. I fed two babies and was back in Esteban's bed in 29 minutes flat. It was perfection... the 3AM, not so much. Renata drank her formula and went to sleep but Catalina didn't want to eat... or sleep. We stayed awake until 4AM and then she woke up at 5 starving and then Renata woke up at 6... starving. Sigh. I placed them in the same crib and entertained them the best I could until Esteban woke up at 6:30. He helped me until the nanny arrived at 8. When she asked how it went Esteban shouted "We survived!" Indeed we did. When Treicy got home she said that she knew that it wouldn't be as bad as I was making it out to be. She's probably right, but I feel that the experience was a lot like going to the proctologist. It's never as bad as you think its going to be... and at the end of the day you're glad you did it and got it over with... but you wouldn't want to make a habit out of it.
Awwwww. Super job, Papito and son!
ReplyDelete