Theeeeeeeeeeeese fooolish gaaaaaaaaames

There are things that I expect to happen at 4:45 in the morning. I expect that I will be awake, my body instinctively knowing that my alarm is about to go off in 20 minutes, so what's the point of falling asleep? Could something be happening on Twitter or on my email at that very second? Shouldn't I check it? But won't it be bright and hurt my eyes? Maybe I better not check it. Let me lie on my other side. Oh God, my fat thighs are radiating directly on to each other and it's so uncomfortable. On my back? Why am I breathing funny on my back? Should I see a specialist? Should I breathe through my nose more consciously? I should get back into that meditation CD I have, the one for ADD. Do I remember right that it helped bowlers, but the British kind, not the big ball kind. I watched bowling once and it seemed like grassy shuffleboard had a baby with curling.

I expect to be running through all these thoughts until my alarm goes off. My hand will fly to it, shutting it down immediately, lest I wake 18-month old Ethan up who sleeps in the room with me. I expect that he will remain asleep and I will stealthily sneak out and down the stairs of my in-laws house and into the kitchen, where I will very slowly and confusedly prepare breakfast and then eat that breakfast in peace with no one else around.

I don't expect Ethan to be up at 4:50am, barreling toward a Milk Rage. This is what happened today. This is what happened yesterday. This will happen every day for the rest of time, right? Do I have to wake at 4am? At 3? I just want to have breakfast and The Daily Show. I am a simple man with simple needs, despite my preference for dark chocolate made exclusively by men with overwhelming, lush beards.

When Ethan started crying for milk that early, I got down to the side of the crib and I stared at my child in the dark, saying things like ssssshhhh and ssssssssshhhHHHH and SSSSSSHHHHH and FOR GOD SAKE SSSSSSHHHHHHH and 'What's happened?!' and 'Come on!' and 'But, Jon Stewart!' and 'Go back to sleep' and 'Ethan. Ethan! Ethan no. Ethan stop this! Ethan....SSSSSHHHH.' Ethan's response was to cry in a more determined, higher-pitched shriek, punctuated by emphysema coughs,  combined with the sign language that he learned for milk, which is squeezing a cow teat over and over again.

I said to Ethan, defeated, 'Okay Ethan, let's go downstairs and get your milk.' I lifted him out of the crib and took him to see Sara. Sara was already up, probably since 3am, because her pregnant body has turned her body clock into a melted Dali shambles. I pointed at Ethan as if to say, 'Can you believe this jerk? Look at him. I know we love him, but at what cost, Sara? At what cost?'

Ethan Teat Squeezed, coughed, cried and flopped down horizontally, an annoying senseless habit that would send him plummeting to earth several times a day if I didn't stop him with my Father Strength. I save his life dozens of times a month. And what thanks do I get? A milk-ravenous fiend interrupting my sacred breakfast time. And when he's older he'll probably want pants.

Downstairs, I prepared his bottle. I explained to him that his bottle at the present moment is too hot, but in a very soon future moment, it will be Just Right, at which point I will give it to him. However, Ethan had Helen Kellered himself, having scrunched his face into a desperate, red mask of pained exasperation whilst suppressing any calming words from DaDa with nonstop screaming. Finally, the bottle was indeed Just Right. It was my intention to take him up stairs to let Sara feed him but Ethan continued to screech, aware the bottle was there and that it wasn't securely in his baby mouth. I had no choice but to feed him on the go, like an uncomprehending lamb, all the way up the stairs until he was with Sara.

And yet we love him. He does a giggle or some new sound and things like this fall down the memory hole or become hilarious, to the point that we're having another one. It's insanity. It's awesome, maddening, addictive insanity.