one thing that sucks

Doing anything with a baby or toddler is much harder & more stressful than otherwise. They act like a degree of difficulty in Olympic diving. If going to the store alone is a baseline activity, taking one with you multiplies your final score by 5.

When other multipliers hit things can spiral rapidly out of control. Let's say you get sick, with some kind of nausea/fever deal, and you're not fit for much besides staring dully at some generic Hollywood offering and passing out at 7:30.

Fuss could give two squirts. He still wants to climb up on the dining room table and gnaw on the candles, he still wants you to make him 4 different dinners looking for the one that meets his protean standards, he still wants to climb inside the dishwasher when you're trying to tidy up afterwards, and he will still shriek like a banshee when you try to put him to bed.

Even when you're lucky enough to have a traditional helpmeet (as I do) it throws everything off. I usually take the reigns when I get home from work and get up with him in the morning. When I can't, the wife ends up having him all day, and all night, and then again in the morning. Which gives me a better appreciation of the unrelenting rigors of single parenthood, but doesn't help the Wife when she starts passing out in the living room at 8am.

Of course, on cue, the Fuss had one of those wretched nights where he wakes up shrieking every hour. I rose at 2am, pouring sweat, and retreated to the living room to perform arcane rights aimed at luring a worried Morpheus back in from the rain.


He's such a relentless, full contact experience it's easy to forget that a mere handful of months ago every night was last night. Hard as he is, he's so improved it seems downright churlish to complain.