Fatherhood at 1:10AM
My son, Timmy, is just over two months old – nine weeks to be exact – and he won’t stop crying He seems to hate his brand-new world and all things in it, including his cot and his rattle and his mother and me Colic, say the doctors, but the kid hates eating and he hates not eating He hates sleeping and he hates not sleeping He hates being held and he hates not being held He hates light and he hates dark.
He hates hot and he hates cold and he hates all temperatures in between. He is full of fury. I have fathered Jack the Ripper. At the moment, in these early-morning hours of August 28, 2003, I’m taking a break while my wife, Meredith, sits in the laundry room with our howling little hater. A pediatrician suggested placing him in a basket atop the clothes dryer. The machine’s warmth and its humming motor have worked their magic, to be sure, but only on my exhausted wife, whom I last saw in a state of semiconsciousness.
Meredith and I are first-timers at the whole baby thing, a pair of rookies, and we are not only incompetent but we’re getting scared. I’m scared, in fact, at this very instant. In a few minutes I’ll be shutting down my computer and returning to duty, except I have no clue as to what my duty actually is. Right now it’s 1:10am, and Timmy has
