First Drunk?

Diana has tried every conceivable way under the sun to get Elijah to take a nap. Yelling. Yelling. Hollering. But no go. At best, he’d spend an hour in his room, destroying it. At worst, he’d coordinate Diana’s shoe collection with a full container of Luca’s powdered formula.

The other day, Diana tried a new tactic. Reverse guilt. Diana explained in a much too excited for a human way, that if he took a nap, Eli would make her the happiest mom. He didn’t have to take a nap, but only if he wanted her to be happy.

Wouldn’t you know, it worked. For a good three days last week Eli quietly and undestructively took a nap. Diana then was forced to spend the rest of the afternoon exaggeratedly shouting, “I’m sooo happy! I love you!”

I tried to ape this technique over the weekend. “Oooh, Eli. Daddy will be so happy if you took a nap. You’d make me so very, very happy…” But when I did it, Eli looked at me like I was patronizing him. Which I was.

Well, that technique wore off faster than a taxi driver’s deodorant. Two days ago, Diana climbed the stairs during naptime to find Eli standing on his changing table, smearing antibacterial gel all over his walls.

Anyone who has a baby, or is OCD, or has watched the news in the last year is sure to have antibacterial gel stockpiled in their house. We have little clear bottles everywhere. That largely go unused, but at least we know if we wanted to kill the poo germs that cover our hands every time we change a diaper, they’re there.

Here’s the thing with that stuff. It’s 99.9% alcohol. She instantly feared Eli had consumed some out of curiosity.

“Eli, did you drink any of this stuff?” She asked.

“Yes! Two weeks worth!” Ugh.

So Diana spent the rest of the afternoon watching for signs that Eli had turned into a miniature Ernest Hemingway. But it was hard to tell whether his falling off the bed, crashing into walls and general lunacy was booze induced or just Eli being Eli.

Right before dinner, Diana asked what he wanted. His reply was, “Ketchup, onions and garlic. It's my favorite.”

He clearly was hammered.