There was a time—some tell me that it wasn’t all that long ago—when I would wake up bleary eyed on a Wednesday after a long night of carousing on a Tuesday.
Those aches and pains are nothing compared to the exhaustion that follows a night sharing a house with a teething baby.
The night is filled with a pleasant mixture of waking up to screams and, like some symbolic hero, stumbling with half-closed eyes into the direction of those tears.
While it would be far easier to explain to this child that sleep is awesome, it has proved far more successful to rock the ailing child to sleep and then gently place him back into his crib as if I were Indiana Jones laying down a bag of sand where a priceless idol once stood.
I then sneak out of the room like a ninja, an art form perfected as a younger man through my own parents’ house.
Thankfully, after 15-16 attempts, the baby was back to sleep. Now I long for the days when I could enjoy the weariness that comes from one too many cocktails.
Teething is no joke. I now can’t wait until he is a teenager, when I can, out of nowhere, disturb his sleep and tell him to wake up.
I am starting to get this father business.
Gabe Zaldivar 