Baby’s Other Annoying New Habit

Last week I informed you about Peanut’s terribly cute and annoying habit of snorting at me. As I pointed out she utilizes this tool to get my attention when she is displeased with the current situation.

Building on this she has found a new way to get her sap daddy’s attention. Babies need to take naps, lots of them. Usually when your baby is tuckered out you can put her down to sleep with minimum fuss.

However, I have heard terrible stories about babies who have trouble falling asleep. Of course, there are always times when she is simply over tired or grumpy and has difficulty sleeping.

Generally Peanut has been the best baby a parent could hope for. When she starts rubbing her eyes I know its time to put her down for a rest.

But recently she has decided, about every third nap or so, that sleeping isn't on the agenda. In this case she starts crying. Now some times babies need to cry a little before they fall asleep. Our parenting book, “What to Expect” says you should let them cry for a few minutes, ten max, before picking them up.

Peanut, however, isn’t really crying. You see, she has learned to “fake cry.” When she doesn’t want to sleep she starts her pretend crying. I know she is not really upset because the tone is different from the tone when she is hurt (Bopped in the head by her own toy), scared (Not sure why but she gets spooked), or overtired (This one sounds like a cat being strangled).

What she has figured out is that her sap of a dad will come running when she cries. I’d have to bee a real curmudgeon to ignore a little girl crying. So when I come running over to her she looks at me and smiles and laughs. It is all very hilarious to her. Sometimes she’ll do this two or three times before she gets bored. I don’t pick her up after all. I just smile back and go about my work.

A few days ago I decided to break her of this awful habit. When Peanut began her routine I peeked in at her. She couldn’t see me. She stopped and then cried again. For some reason, her tactic having failed, she began bawling. The type that suggested she was spooked. Probably since she thought sap had abandoned her. So I charged in she calmed down and went to sleep.

I find it alarming that she has already contrived ways to get attention from men. She’s only seven months but I’m already terrified of her being sixteen.

That aside, her new habit, while cute, is incredibly annoying. Nothing is worse than putting her down settling in for some task and being interrupted five minutes into it. Nap time is, after all, the biggest chunk of free time for me. Yes there are three of them and yes once she falls asleep I have one to two hours of uninterrupted time. Even though I know it is a hoax it is not worth the risk of ignoring her.

Mostly though, I object to a pretty girl treating me like a chump.