– 6:22 pm
Mid-morning yesterday, we picked up your grandparents from the airport. Waze took us through the tiny bendy backstreets on the way back which made your grandmother uncharacteristically car sick from all the swaying and swerving. So much so that she had to swap seats to the front and we had to make a couple of stops so she could get some air.
I let them settle in and popped out to find you a Moses basket in Kingston. Liza thought it’d make you more mobile around the house and her mother wouldn’t have to stoop so low to get you to and from the floor (where you prefer to sleep). Surprisingly, the only place I could find one was in John Lewis. They didn’t have the stand in-store so I bought one from Amazon by Clair de Lune which was delivered today. It took less than no time to assemble.
Temperatures yesterday went as high as 33o. It was hot upstairs, intolerable outside and best in the basement which always manages to stay cool. But even there, you could break a sweat by simply blinking. Your umbilical cord stump couldn’t handle the heat either and fell off. It had been a source of pain for you so I was happy to bin it.
That was all manageable until your mother fed you. She called me panicking, saying you weren’t your normal self. I could tell straight away something was off but couldn’t allow myself to show it. In my mind, we needed at least one parent calm and logical. Internally I was shitting bricks. The best way to describe how you were behaving is like a toy with very low battery power. Your lights were dim. You couldn’t keep your arms up like you normally do, boxer style. They were lanky and falling sideways when we tried holding you up. You weren’t kicking either. I told Liza you were just lethargic from the Formula, a ploy to keep her angst and apprehension in check.
We put you in front of a blasting fan and tried to instil some mobility by moving your limbs vigorously. Not much changed. Your mother asked if she could slap you up. I greenlit the suggestion. That must have really hurt because you cried. But you stopped way too quickly. The smacks didn’t match the cry. So she did it again. And thankfully, you cried for a bit longer. We’ve never been happier to hear such an irritating sound.
We took you to the nappy changing table as that always rubs you the wrong way and provokes a scream. We did everything possible to make you uncomfortable. I was dousing you with wet wipes, in your hair, face, everywhere. That really got you going. The scare was over. We’re putting it down to something heat related.
Liza couldn’t get you to sleep that night. I think you could sense her worry and became very irritable and easily irascible. She was crying when I took you off her hands. I told her she was exhausted and needed to rest. I fed you the bottle she’d prepared and changed your diaper. Your bum rash had almost completely gone from applying basic vaseline I didn’t know I had under the bathroom sink. You were still pissed off (from the slaps most likely) and I had to carry you on my bare chest laying down to get you to sleep. I didn’t even notice you weren’t in your crib the following morning. Liza was still sleeping next to me as well, which made your whereabouts a mystery for a few seconds.