The Tale of the Toe

Last night I am awakened about 2:30 by the summoning of the count for his midevening snack. Lately I have been a selfish insensitive jerk, well I'm always a selfish insensitive jerk, but recently my jerkiness has escalated to a whole new level.

I have been feeding puppies at 9pm. Feeding is actually the least work. I have been pooper scooping at 9pm while the miniature poop machines eat. After such time that I finish my excrement duty, I head to bed. The wife stays up for her 11pm count feeding (as in accordance with her 10p - 2a schedule) after which she heads to bed. The next 2 feedings, whenever they may be, I have been skipping out of. No matter what time it is, she gets up and feeds the kid.

I wake up and feed the pups again at 5 before I head to work.

None of this was previously arranged mind you. She didn't say, "honey, my darling husband, and sweetness divine (she always calls me that) if you feed the puppies early in the evening then late in the morning, I will forgo sleep completely and take care of the kid". She didn't say that, but that's exactly what she's been doing.

So 2:30 rolls around, and you can tell my conscious has been getting to me. I get out of bed and halfway stumble into the counts room. By the time I can put the pacifier in his mouth (which usually buys me 5 minutes to heat up his bottle) the wife is in there consoling him. I tell her I will get this one, but in my sleepwalking state it probably sounded more like, "aaiihhh geeet thiiisssssuuuunnn" and I head down to heat up a bottle while the wife rocks the kid to prevent him from waking up France.

Flashback 5-6 weeks ago.

I'm heading out into our garage to get something. I have recently come home out of a drenching rain which soaked me to the bone, so I'm wearing some shorts and a t-shirt and that's it. I step off of our bottom stair in the garage, and don't notice the pool of water that has accumulated at the base of the steps which has dripped off my car because the aforementioned downpour I was in. As soon as my foot hits the puddle and has all of my weight applied on it, the foot goes flying forward. The only thing that stops me from landing on my head was my cars tire. I was truly lucky to catch that tire, the only problem was what I caught it with.

The entire weight of my body in rapid accelerating descent was stopped by the force of ONE of my toes catching the side of that tire. It wasn't my big toe, mind you, my body could have possibly absorbed that, it was the longer one right next to it. It mangled that toe like Styrofoam in the microwave.

Granted, this injury wasn’t something that I thought required surgery to fix, but I probably should have at least gone to the doctor for it to be taped and splinted up. Me being the soccer player though, thought I should just shut up and live through it.

Over the next several weeks I discovered many things. Apparently after having a baby, you acquire all sorts of big stuff that would have never been in your house. High chairs, strollers, car seats, all of these and many more wonderful items now litter your floor wherever you can find the space. And since I have been running on little sleep for a while now, my direction and balance are less than optimal. I seem to have found these items all over my house with that toe. And by finding them, I of course mean kicking the heck out of them. I know for a fact that I have re-broken my toe no less than 4 times over the past few weeks. To say the least, my toe is a little achy now and then, and every time I seem to be making a little headway, I find a way to set myself back to square one.

Back to last night.

I wander back upstairs after heating the bottle and find my beautiful wife rocking our child in her little chair. She rises to let me sit down, and I halfway collapse into the comfortable chair hoping that I will at least stay awake long enough to put the bottle in the kids mouth.

H, being the giving person that she is, offers to feed the little man and let me go back to bed. She does this every day, for 24 hours a day, and I can’t suck it up and do it once, c’mon. I thank her and decline with the "aaiihhh geeet thiiisssssuuuunnn" again, my drool sliding down my face as I struggle to keep my eyes open. My wife gently steps forward, hands me my eagerly awaiting son, smiles at me with that sort of pity normally reserved for mentally handicapped people, and a searing pain rises from the depths of my extremeties. In her loving gentle manner, she has put all of her weight on my toe as she is handing me the little one.

Let me tell you something, if you are having trouble staying awake at 2:30 in the morning, boy do I have a cure for you.

I spent the rest of the evening after I fed the wee man searching the internet for a new toe.

Call it Karma, call it divine intervention, but I bet I won’t be missing any more of those 2am feedings when it’s my shift.