Udder Failure

That's what I am. As a mother, I make a good doorstop.

The Man Cub, (Canis Lupus, whom we shall call Lupus) is no longer satisfied with my feeble attempts at child-rearing. Lately, this dissatisfaction manifests itself on the midnight-to-dawn shift when the Missus is trying to catch up some desperately-needed sleep and I am On Call.

That's when he breaks out the new, improved Extreme Fussing.

So I do all the stuff the books say, the stuff that should work, that used to work.

I feed him. I change his diaper. I insert his pacifier orally. I play with his little hands and look into his wide-awake eyes and say ridiculous things like “yaga boogo” while gently rocking him back and forth. I walk around the den with him. I place him inside the plaything-devices he finds so diverting during the daytime. I do everything but slip him a couple of roofies and order him a double shot.

Of course, none of this ever works for longer than 5-15 minutes at a crack, but that's okay because another few minutes have gone by and now it's only four and a half hours till his mother wakes up and I am doing my bit.

No more.

Lupus has added a new trick to his repertoire the last couple nights that I haven't been able to figure out an effective countermeasure to: He shrieks without let-up at paint-peeling volume till I either take him in to his mother, or he passes out. After which he wakes up in a couple minutes, glares balefully at me and starts in with the screaming again.

Not just any screams, either. You know that road to hell they say is paved with good intentions? It sounds like his scream is being dragged over the last 30 miles of that rough road leading right up to the fiery gates themselves. It scrapes off the back of his throat and bursts forth in an undulating wail that would put Iraqi women mourning their war dead to shame.

And I wake his mother up, surrender the Man Cub to her in deepest shame, and slink out, tail between my legs, and comfort the dog, who by this point is right at the edge of a nervous breakdown. Too.