Applying for the Position of Tyrant

When I first thought about writing this post today, I only had one thing to say. Now that the baby is in bed and I can finally write, there's a whole list. I figure that I should apply for a position as a tyrant since I would be great at the job. And if it's the kind of job that requires a nomination, I think Caleb would be more than willing to nominate me.

The original reason I thought I could make a good tyrant is that I forced Caleb to eat an entire jar (stage one size) of green beans. He cried with every bite. I kept doing silly things to get him to smile and hence open his mouth, and then I'd shove another spoonful into his mouth. He did manage (against his will) to eat the entire jar and afterwards, I let him eat a thing of apricots with mixed fruit (apples, pears, and bananas). He really liked the apricots.

Yesterday, the neighbor's kids made Caleb cry (although in their defense, he was already really cranky and so it didn't take much to make him cry -- and the older three were actually trying to make him smile; the baby however, probably just thought he looked tasty and was hoping for a sample). Then today, we were sitting outside in our backyard and the kids were peering over at us, so I invited them into our yard to play. The 2 year old wanted to hold Caleb (he didn't like that). She also wanted to feed him (since I had a bottle of juice out there with us) and in the process, got juice all over him, including in his hair.

While it meant that Caleb had a great spiky hairdo the rest of the day, it also meant that he needed a bath. We don't bathe him very often. Usually, when we do finally break down and bathe him, I hand him to Brandon while he's already in the shower. Not tonight. Tonight, Caleb got to take a bath like a big boy. And he hated it. Cried pretty much the entire time.

Then, when I put Caleb in bed, after he fell asleep nursing, he woke up and started crying. But I just left him there to cry. Last night, about thirty minutes after I put the baby to bed, he woke up crying. I checked on him to make sure he was okay, but then left him to cry. An hour later, he went to sleep. Tonight he only cried for a few minutes, but still... Normally, Brandon feels responsible for Caleb sleeping and will rush in to put him back to sleep when he cries. But Nathan came up to help him on the kitchen, so he's been too busy to deal with the baby. So Caleb's gone back to the cry it out method that worked so well for us in Texas.

Regardless of the reasons for my tyranny, I still feel bad about it. It's been a hard and stressful day, can you tell?