Tonight: Teething

After five months, we occasionally start to fool ourselves that we've got this parenting thing down. The boy had started lobbying for post-midnight bedtimes, but we worked him hard this week, quieting down sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. for three nights in a row. We felt victorious. We felt smart.

Then there's tonight.

It's 1:45 a.m. Jocelyn is rocking the boy now in his room, singing "Hush Little Baby" for what she swears is -- no exaggeration -- the 100th time today. She is tired. She has earplugs in to dampen his occasional screams because -- this is key -- about 15 minutes ago he started shrieking. We think it was because of teething pain. The Orajel certainly seems to have calmed him down since. But it's tiring and it's certainly not easy. (And it's far more tiring and difficult for Jo, who after all has been with him here all day long.)

Plus, the cat has her own problems, breaking forth with her own yowl -- or sets of yowls -- every five to 10 minutes or so.