So, I Guess I'm a Dad

I signed Tyler up for a quick one-hour massage as thanks for being a solid Mom for the last 6 weeks (to Tripp – not me). 

Me? I’m fine. 

For dinner Tuesday night we had “Cooked Meat Sandwich” with get-your-own-water, and you-don’t-need-a-napkin, and the-forks-are-in-the-kitchen.

To be clear: that’s meat on bread with part of an onion on it.  You know – “Cooked Meat Sandwich”.

Anyway, she was grateful for the massage, which started at 1PM, so she thanked me at 12:45 and toodled out the door unsteadily in a sleep-deprived fog. She walked into the garage - forgetting to shut the door behind her, returned, and and pulled it all the way closed with a “click”.

The sound of that fateful click boomed hollowly in my ears as it dawned on me – I had miscalculated. I was alone with a 6-week-old and it was entirely my own fault.

At the “click” I turned to find Tripp with his head thrown back and his mouth open wide in a soundless howl of anguish emanating from the very depths of his tiny, unformed soul. I felt galvanized; rooted to the spot at the sheer volume of fury simply pouring out of what, moments before, had been a peacefully sleeping infant.

He cried, then he pooped, then he dropped his pacifier, then he cried again, then peed, then cried, then spit out his pacifier, then he was hungry, so I fed him, so he puked, so I changed him, then he had gas, which made him cry, which gave him the hiccups, which made him cry harder, then he pooped, then he cried and peed and pooped, so I changed him, then he was hungry again, so I fed him, so he had terrible gas and cried, then pooped, so I changed him, then he peed, so I changed him, then he peed harder, so I changed him….and all his clothes…..and his swing cushion….which made him cry.

I looked at my watch – it was 1:45.  Soiled diapers dotted the den and foyer like toadstools and the child was lying, naked, on the floor with the “Marketplace” section of the Wall Street Journal spread underneath him.

I texted Tyler at 1:46 – “I am sorry, but you are going to need to come home.”

She texted back at 2:15 “I didn’t get your message”.

And then, I cried.