Do you want fries with that?

My husband has taken to referring to the baby monitor as the drive through window. I’m not sure if this is because of the scratchy quality of sound, the unintelligible noises she makes (sounds about equivalent to when my order is repeated back) or because her take out order is so quickly fulfilled (and at 3am my customer service level about matches your average minimum wage fast food employee). It reminded me of a story my friend told about his Mom watching his cousin. She had their “drive through” on and heard the little boy asking for water after he went to bed – so she brought him some water. Apparently he thought this was just great and started placing his next order! “… ice cream sandwich.” Sadly I guess the level of service dropped there and no ice cream sandwich appeared – though wouldn’t it be great to have that sort of magic monitor in your house?! How nice would that have made pregnancy? I’d like a glass of water, the pickle flavored potato chips and someone to help me out of bed to make it to the bathroom.

Thankfully the drive through is getting less use as she gets older, though we are not QUITE done with it. I mentioned this to a friend of mine with three kids who “yelled” (via IM) back – what are you doing getting up? Ferber method! Oh goodness, parenting methods… If you lined up 5 doctors, you’d get at least 6 different theories on parenting, but it does amaze me how truculently some people abide by them – and expect you to as well. We’ve been pretty lucky that our munchkin generally sleeps pretty well, but as I’ve mentioned here, she does regress on occasion and start waking up again. Because it’s not her norm, I generally do get up to check on her / feed her (until the pattern repeats enough times that it’s becoming her norm and then I try to hold out). As she’s currently teething, I’ve been a bit more of a sucker for the cries (unfortunate that this coincides with about the age that “they” say she can begin to be spoiled – and start playing me!). The problem with going to check on her, though, is that you can’t just “look in” and make sure she’s alright and then leave without feeding her. As soon as she sees you – it’s all over. If I don’t feed her, the cries will become tormented. Between the sobs you can almost hear – “I saw you come in, so I know you can hear me. I need you. And yet you ignored me. I used to think you loved me, but now I don’t and will therefore grow up to be a sociopath.” I mean, it’s definitely quiet – but it’s there. I tried to explain this to my husband, but she’d been making noise and crying for awhile, so he went in. He came back 30 seconds later, the anguished sobs coming over the monitor, and said, “OK, so you were right. Could you go feed her?” Because the thing is – rocking won’t do it. Now I’d like full service, please.