OUch Goes The Heart

Erika driving to school.

My daughter Erika has always been a "Daddy's Girl".  Her mom walks into the room and Erika just causally says "hi mama.", and continues on with whatever project she has on the go.  But when I walk into the room, look out.  She screams "DADDY!!!"  And she comes barreling towards me as if she were a stampeding buffalo.  I barely get enough time to drop my keys and work bag so I can catch her in my arms and receive the hug that makes all the daily woes just disappear into the fog of war.  That is why I always take my boots off outside before I enter the house.  When she asks us to play building blocks with her, my wife will offer up her services and Erika will shout"NO Mama!  Daddy!" I can hear a thunderous CRACK as tho a large piece of a giant glacier had broken off.  My wife gives me a downtrodden look and I try my darnedest not to smile, but inside I am beaming like a super hero who had just stopped a bus full of school children from hurdling off a cliff. 

  The other day we were playing again in the living room as a family.  Erika and her mom were playing with her plastic food.  Erika picks up a pop can and starts saying Pepsi, which so happens that the diet version is my drink of choice.  She repeats Pepsi a few more times and her mom suggests that she share her Pepsi with Daddy instead of Mommy.  Erika rolled her eyes and sighed.  The thunderous cracking noise I had hear so many times before, was now emanating from my chest cavity.  The tables have turned and  I am not liking it.  Something has changed in our family dynamic to have caused Erika to choose her mom over myself and I have to find out what it is and fix it before there's nothing left of my heart to break. 

Erika having fun at the park

She has been shunning me for 3 days now.  I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what I did to cause this rift between us.  Meanwhile my wife has been relishing every moment and teasing me without abandon.  I can take the teasing with a smile and an alligator tear.  I commiserate the fact that she is 2 and trying to figure things out and will change her mind yet again somewhere down the road.  I hope it is sooner than later.  Even if it is later I will always lover her with all that is left of my disintegrating heart.   I knew parent hood would be a tough job but I did not realize how heart wrenching the little things would be.  And this is just the start of it all.

Austin in one of his a formula induced coma

On a lighter side, we have discovered that Austin does like to be swaddled.  It originally upset him to no end when we would encase him in a tightly wrapped cocoon, but the other day his constant fussiness had caused us to reassess and try things that didn't work beforehand.  Now when he starts to fuss and squirm and we know he has clean diaper, a belly full of formula and all the burps ousted out of that little body of his. We simply swaddle him up nice and tight and the minute we tuck the last corner of the blanket in, his eyes close and he lets out a big yawn and promptly drifts off and sleeps for a glorious 5 to 6 hours straight.  The hellish nights have temporarily come to an end.  Trust me I am not going to kid myself into thinking that this is the end of all future sleepless nights.  But for now we are celebrating with sleep and hopefully more sleep.  I want to be drunk with sleep till sleep cannot be slept anymore.

P.S. 27 more days till i get to fire a crossbow with  C4 tipped arrowheads. :D