At 3:30am, it happened again. In the middle of a dead sleep, I hear Alli screaming. Mommy B and I both sprang out of bed to tend to our baby girl. We tried giving her a bottle (which I had to stumble downstairs to make in the darkness) but she wasn't really having it - which Followers know is not something Alli really does.
It was at that moment I knew what I needed to do... I pulled on some clothes, grabbed the car keys and headed out the door - Super Dad was to the rescue. There I was - 3:45am walking the aisles of Meijer (it's like a nicer version of WalMart for us northerners) looking for two things - Children's Tylenol and teething rings (just in case) to put in the fridge. After a few minutes of wandering around like a drunken idiot (who else would be shopping at 4am?) I found my items and headed home.
By the time I got home, Mommy B had effectively rocked little Alli back to sleep. She had been able to get her to take a little formula, but not her normal midnight chow-down. Feeling somewhat discouraged, I went back to bed knowing that we would need my purchases soon enough. And I was right...
At about 5:30am (the times start to run together at this point), Alli woke up again - same screams as before. We immediately went for the Tylenol and the bottle. This time Alli willingly took both, which we took as a good sign. After a short while of rocking her back to sleep, her stomach decided that the Acetaminophen/Similac combination wasn't working out - at which point she promptly threw up all over my shoulder, down my shirt and boxers, and onto the floor. Scarlett decided to have her own early morning snack and did most of the clean-up for us. Thanks pooch.
The good news about all of this is that once she threw up, she immediately felt better and went back to sleep. Mommy B and I were able to clean up a bit and go back to bed as well. Alli woke up around 7 or so feeling like a new woman - she was back to her normal giggly, talky self. I scraped myself out of bed again to get Alli going and to let Mommy B get more sleep. My mom and I spent the rest of Saturday morning walking Alli around my neighborhood in a stroller, and things finally started to seem to be settling down.
We relaxed the rest of the day to get Alli back on schedule, and that afternoon I had some close family members come visit so they could meet Alli for the first time. She did great with them and had a blast playing at my house. I gotta say, it was a weird feeling having my child in the same house I grew up in - sleeping in my same crib, eating at the same table, playing in the same yard that I had for so many years, so many years earlier.
That night Alli went to bed at her normal time (thank goodness), so Mommy B and I decided to follow suit and hit the sheets early to catch up on some sleep. Well, our slumber was short-lived... only this time it wasn't Alli waking us up, it was Mommy B. She sprang out of bed sometime in the early morning hours and headed for the bathroom - at which point she immediately threw up. Keep in mind that I've been around Mommy B for over 8 years and have witnessed her throw up three times (that includes college & alcohol). Needless to say, she spent the rest of Sunday morning in the bathroom and bed trying to recover from whatever it was.
She managed to feel a little better by that afternoon, at which point we packed up the car and headed to Dayton to meet up with a bunch of friends from college. Some of them we hadn't seen since our wedding three years ago, some even longer. Some had kids of their own now too, so it was a great opportunity for everyone to see each other again and for our kids to play together. We had a blast seeing everyone and hanging out for a few hours - it was almost like we hadn't been apart at all. We finally said our goodbyes and we headed off for the final leg of our northward journey - to Mommy B's hometown of Findlay.
We arrived that evening and had a slew of family waiting for our arrival. Being that it was getting close to Alli's bedtime, I unpacked most of the car as family got their Alli hugs (some of them hadn't seen her since she was one month old!) We were able to get her off to bed at a decent hour, which gave us some time to hang out with family. Once again, our time to relax was short lived. Only this time, I was the one having all the fun...
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