The Empire Strikes Back!

Well, maybe not an empire. But its vocal capacity makes me feel like I'm sitting in a theater, watching Star Wars.

This is my "baby weekend," and I've already flipped my lid once. See, I picked up my little Ailbe [don't even ask about the name, I'll explain later] on Thursday after school, because my teacher was going to be absent the next day and it was just more convenient.

Ha. Convenient. Nothing is convenient with this bundle of joy.

Anyway, my teacher "programmed" it on a 24-hour delay. It wasn't supposed to start fussing until Friday, 2:30 pm. Ha.

So I get in my house, I set down the car seat, and I leave the room for less than half a minute. Guess who starts bawling? You get three guesses, and the first two don't count. :)

So I run downstairs, completely flustered after going to school with the flu. I try everything--but it won't even respond to the key. If it doesn't beep when you put the key in its back, it doesn't particularly need anything, it just wants to be rocked and comforted.

I'm crying now because I'm so sick and so exhausted [and I'm a girl... That's what girls do in the face of crisis, they cry] and now this stupid, stupid, stupid plastic doll is screaming throughout my whole house. I yell at it, I yell at my dog [not sure why?] and I do what any self-respecting teenager in crisis would do.

I call my grandparents.

Living only 3 minutes away, they were there in a flash. Of course, my grandma got the thing to shut up after only a few minutes, but we decided to take it back up to the school to get it reprogrammed for the weekend.

I finally stop crying and we get ready to leave. Then the baby starts screaming again.

Once again, I start crying, but this time I'm too angry to just fall apart completely. I put a blanket over the speaker in its chest and rush out the door, eager to get back to the school to get it set right.

I catch my teacher just as she's leaving, but she very generously fixes the baby for me, and sends me home. I am forever in her debt. Forever.

From 4 pm to 5 pm, this little one cried 4 times [every 20 minutes, in case anyone cares]. But they were short cries, and all I had to do was pick her up and she stopped. After 5, she didn't cry again. I barely slept, convinced that I was hearing that robotic wailing all night long...

I know exactly why I got a fussy one, too--It's because I've said all along that I really don't like kids that much. Somehow it heard me, and it's striking back, showing me the range of its mind-boggling powers. I'm in awe of of the noise an 18-inch doll can make.

Let me try to explain the noise level. Imagine throwing rocks at a wall of aluminum cans, and then turning on every single jackhammer in the country simultaneously. On top of that, there's this infernal screeching, the "scream-cry" that we're supposed to try to prevent [it means they're in virtual pain]. Gah.

Today I'm home sick again, feeling like roadkill. Whoever ran me over with that darn cement truck is going to pay, and I know just the way to arrange such punishment.

Young moms are always looking for a babysitter. :D

-Abbs is [spent, and] OUT.