Bones

Two nights ago before I went to bed, I did my regular nightly habit: Poking Elijah while he's asleep. I like to poke him to the point of almost waking up. No, not because I’m a sadist. Well, kind of. But mostly because I’m checking to make sure he’s alive. I need him to be alive when I go to sleep so I can continue existing. Also he groans really cutely when you almost poke him almost awake.

Well, two nights ago when I poked him he felt hot. I whispered to Diana to give him the mom test. She confirmed he was hot, but not 109 boiling from the old hoof and mouth disease days.

In the recesses of my brain I remembered babies can get low-grade fevers when they cut teeth. And Elijah has some monster molars coming in. It almost looks like pointy white bones are pushing their way through his gums. Wait. It looks exactly like pointy white bones are pushing their way through his gums.

So rather than administer the old butt thermometer, Diana and I went to bed and dreamt about having a tickle fight with Michelle Obama. Or at least one of us did.

At midnight, he began to wail. Bad. He was super mad and nothing we (Diana) could do would make him calm down. At 3:30, Diana suggested I go downstairs to sleep on the couch since I had big meetings all day. I laid down and realized our stairs actually act as an amplifier for baby screams.

I debated using this opportunity to rob our neighbors’ homes while they slept, but then decided to go back upstairs and join in on the non-fun. At 5:30, Eli was officially awake and Di took him down for some Sesame Street, milk and general exhaustion.

I got home last night and found Eli to be in much better spirits, but also had one of the grossest moments of my life, which I will write about in the next post.

How’s that for a cliffhanger?

p.s. Who is this dog and why isn’t he Grover?