fun with rubik’s cubes

One of the first things I learned about having a kid is that they’re like Rubik’s cubes. You spend Monday to Sunday trying to solve them, and as soon as you’re ready to click that last row into place, someone comes and twists it all again. Rinse. Repeat.

We are cry it out parents. I’m not a martyr or anything, I just believe it’s the best thing for him. It used to involve some mellow crying, and then between minutes 6 and 8, he’d be asleep. This week, he’s developed this “I’m going to scream like someone is chasing me with a knife, and you will hear me throughout the entire house. So will the neighbours. Everyone will think you’re totally stabbing me.” This happens every time we put him in his crib. Nap? Suuure, I can scream that out. Bedtime? Why discriminate? So…like all times previous, bad cop has disallowed good cop to go upstairs and rescue the baby from…himself. He has organic sheets for crying out loud. (haha, no pun intended.) How can you not self soothe in organic, 8 million thread count cotton sheets? I should be the one crying at bedtime. I have cheap, scratchy sheets. And no one sung to me. WTF?

So we do. We let him cry it out for 15 minutes before we intervene and set him up again (soother in, pat on the head, and some shhhhh-ing.) And it works. Every time. During this 15 minutes, I try to think of things that make your guts feel the way they do when you’re listening to your baby cry:

• getting “let go” from the job you love
• having a fight with your best friend
• breaking up with someone
• being broken up with
• intense confrontation
• having to tell someone bad news

Just as I finish up this post…the Prince has successfully drifted off. Another night of milk dreams, set to the creepy Baby Einstein music. I hope that next week’s puzzle doesn’t involve screaming. Fellow Rubik’s cube solvers, I salute you.