June 15, 2005

Babies are bad

Did I recently say something about sleeping more? I would like to retract that. Last night the boys tag-teamed us all night long. Alternately they woke up every 45 minutes through the night. I take back everything good I’ve ever said about them. I understand that they will not fully understand punishment if I attempt retribution now. But I have a very long memory.

Most parents send out only the cutest pictures of their babies. Intended of course to convince the recipients that that is how the baby always is. And the recipient’s heart is warmed and they wish they had a warm little cuddly baby as well. Because I think that this is a dishonest practice, I am considering posting the video that Megan recently took of the touching former bedtime routine at the McCarter household. It is nearly 5 minutes long, and is just close ups (with audio) of the boys turning red and popping veins as they join in a screaming chorus. Long, frantic, quivery screams punctuated with implosively fast gasps for air, with changes in frequency, rate, and desperation. They are equally pathetic and un-helpable. But as the tape rolls you begin to wonder what kind of parents they must have. Are they wartime journalist who would sooner film a burning man than help him? Do they take pleasure in this? Now that the boys do not perform scream fest any longer, we are glad that we took the video. It helps us remember that maybe things aren’t so bad now. It’s like watching a VH-1 segment on an awful band from the 80’s; Time has a way of turning all tragedy to comedy.

So far, last night is still not funny.