While Jamie was pregnant, being the amazing parent that she is, she made us take the parenting class offered by the hospital. I know what you may be thinking, "Sam this is sort of action is totally unlike your laissez-faire parenting style."
You would normally be right, but when your wife promises you sex, it is hard to turn it down. Ok, what really happened was an 8 month pregnant mamma bear told me that I would be going, so I made the wise decision to turn off the t.v. and go.
All jokes aside about having to watch multiple videos about birthing where you see everything... and different breast feeding videos... it was an amazing class. One of the parts that stood out was a video called "The Period of Purple Crying. The period of purple crying is simply when your child won't stop crying even after you have fed them, and changed them, and rocked them, and... It is a video to let you know that it this is very common and you shouldn't shake your baby to get them to stop, but instead it is ok if your are at your limit to just put them in their crib and walk away.
I turned to my wife and said "With my 8 years experience I should make a video about marriage called the period of purple whining."
Jamie said, "don't be modest, you have way more experience than just 8 years of whining." (I know this is a blog about fatherhood, but for those who haven't been married yet here is a little advice, don't marry someone smarter than yourself!)
My kid is amazing! He really is a very easy going kid. He doesn't fuss much, he smiles a lot, he loves to talk and coo. All in all he is a very good kid, but last Friday I had my first experience with the period of purple crying. I don't know what was happening, but from 10:00 in the morning until 6:00 at night he just kept crying. I tried to feed him, he was ok for 10 minutes. I tried to rock him, he was ok for 5 minutes. I tried to read to him, to sing to him, to walk him, we went on a drive, we went to the store, I gave him medicine, I tried everything and he just kept crying.
Around 6:00, I was at my limit. I thought I am just going to put him in his crib and drive until I ran out of gas. Just like that the tears dried up and he started to smile at me. For the next hour he was his happy, smiley, talkative self. He told me all sorts of stories about drool, and gurgles, and coos. It was amazing. Just like I couldn't get him to stop crying, now I couldn't get him to stop cooing. It was like the last 8 hours never happened. It made the last 8 hours totally worth it.
Then at 7:00 he started to cry again... never mind what I said about the last 8 hours, I take it back! I will see you when the tank reaches E. Good thing that his mom came home at 7:30 because this dad was done. For those of you trying to guess the ending to the story you would be right. All he wanted all day was his mom. He loves her and while he didn't "talk" to her like he did for me during that hour he was back to being generally a good kid!
What have you done as you have experienced the period of purple crying?
