Tooth
It’s 4am. The worst time. LT – 6 months old – is crying. Again. She last cried 40 minutes ago. And she cried 40 minutes before that. I’ve lost count and track of the times before. This is unusual. I’m not equipped for it.
But I’ve had enough. It’s late. Or is it early? I’ve had no sleep, and I have important things to do in the morning. (Not really, but they seem it at 4am.)
Six months. That’s old enough for her to be trying it on, isn’t it? This is beginning to feel like a tantrum. I’ll let her work it out by herself…
But she’s not stopping. She’s just working up to more and more distress. So I pick her up. Of course I do. And I hug, and I soothe, and I beg because I don’t know what else to do. She comes into our bed, and with some hugs and kisses and songs she eventually gets back off to sleep.
I look at the clock and decide I may as well get up. And I go to work, and I type, almost on autopilot. And I go to Smith’s where I forget to buy what I went in for, and leave my debit card in the machine when I go back in for the second time. And then I go home, tired, grumpy and dreading the night ahead.
“Her first tooth has come through!” my partner grins. And in six words, the confusion of the night before crystallises into sense. And I feel awful, because it wasn’t a tantrum, and I was a horrible Dad. And I realise those important things I had to do were, in fact, minuscule.
And I feel wonderful because she’s growing up and I’m there to see it.
I go to her, and she looks at me, and beams that big toothless grin – not so toothless now – and I sit beside her, and she reaches out and rests her hand on me. And whatever she’s capable of thinking or feeling, I feel welcome, forgiven and loved.