Cry Aloud and Shout

Since it's Father's day, we thought it only appropriate that dad make today's entry in the Little Brown Baby blog and so... here we go.

But before we even talk about today, we have to talk about last night.

As we have previously shared in this forum, Langston has been, much to our great delight, a fairly calm and easy-going baby, crying only when wet or hungry and sleeping quite well also, awaking on average, one or two times each night. Needless to say, we're thinking we've hit the mother lode, especially given the many horror stories we've heard of babies who rarely sleep and cry incessantly. So here we are, Karlyn and I, thinking we have this parenting thing all figured out, ready to publish our line of parenting DVDs when Saturday night (and all heck) breaks loose!

For reasons we have yet been able to explain, that boy cried...and then screamed...and then hollered. And then it got worse. It got so bad in fact that Karlyn was almost in tears for she had fed him, burped him, changed him, put him to sleep, fed him again, and still, nothing worked as he continued to cry. Finally, at about 12:45 AM, I took him so that Karlyn could sleep. Of course I was hoping I could provide some sort of magical paternal touch. Didn't happen. Fortunately, I quickly realized that eventually, he would have to stop crying if for no other reason than fatigue. At some point, he would tire and fall asleep, right? Uh, wrong. He was like the Energizer Bunny, except for him, it was crying and crying and crying.

At this point, it is 2:00 AM and I have one trick left to try, something a co-worker told me worked with his daughter. I get dressed, put Langston in the car seat, hop on the freeway and take a drive. 20 minutes later when we returned, he was sleeping peacefully and I was thanking the Good Lord.

Now as for Father's Day, I must say, it was truly wonderful to walk into church and be, for the first time, celebrated as a father. Langston was introduced to the Praise Tabernacle church family who of course celebrated and loved him all while speaking much of his cuteness. I gave a short "victory report" about the tense hours leading to his birth and when service ended, all I could think of were the smiles, the oohs and the ahhs.

After service, we went to the cemetery to "visit" my parents and needless to say, it was quite emotional. Despite having been married 3 1/2 years, I had only ever gone to the cemetery by myself. But today would be different because today's visit would be multi-purpose: Celebrating the memory of my mom's birthday, which was June 12th, celebrating the memory of previous Father's Days with my dad, celebrating my first Father's Day as a father and "introducing" my wife and son to my parents. Yes, I cried a little bit, but having Karlyn and Langston with me made it better - their presence was the kiss for my emotional boo-boo.

It was an absolutely perfect day and I'm thankful for Karlyn and Langston who made it all possible.