the ocean

Last weekend Ian and I babysat for our nephew Jack while my sister went to a work event. It did not go what one would call well. Jack is going through a phase of extreme attachment to his mother, and also apparently decided not to sleep at all the night before. So the minute he got in the door, he was clinging to her like a Real Housewife to a grudge over an offhand comment at a dinner party. Every time she put him down, he started screaming, like a Real Housewife at anything. And when she left, he literally choked on his own rage, crying and screaming until he threw up on me. It was a scene unlikely to be featured in an ad for The Honest Company any time soon.

We decided the only thing to do was to put him down for a nap, with the help of his beloved white noise YouTube videos. There was a catch, however, in that he wanted to actually watch the videos, and every time I pulled my phone back to rest my arm, he started screaming again. Luckily, Ian set me up with a selfie stick, so I could just hold the stick on my lap and do other things while Jack alternated between drifting off to sleep and awaking with a start and screaming "mommy!" I crushed a lot of candy that day, my friends. But eventually he did go to sleep, and when he woke up, he was utterly cheerful.

At least until his mother got back, at which point he acted like I was trying to force him to watch home videos of my community theatre production of Brigadoon or something. Mom is still number one. But we made it several hours without fatality or injury, which I understand from the parents I know is about the best one can hope for.