February 10, 2003 - Monday
The most amazing thing happened last night with Jeremy. It was about 12:30am and he had woken up crying, from a bad dream or something I'm guessing. His mother had gone in to check on him, which we usually don't anymore because it just prolongs the time he's awake and crying (something we learned with the second child), but this time he was particularly loud. His crying had woken up Harry and he was crying, too. That's not something he usually does much anymore either. He usually doesn't wake up or does and just doesn't cry out because he knows there's nothing to do about it. I went in to calm him down and agreed with him that Jeremy shouldn't have woken him up. Fortunately, that seemed to appease him.

As for Jeremy, he kept crying after his mother had come and gone. That's no surprise, but he kept going for much longer than usual and that was surprising, and certainly annoying. After more than five minutes of aggressive crying, and increasing parental frustration, I got out of bed and went in his room. As I've done before, I picked him up from his standing position against the crib railing and placed him back down on his back in the crib. I was a little firmer than usual, being frustrated by the scene at the end of a hard weekend, and maybe that surprised him. When he kept complaining, I said, in a voice that matched my frustration, "that's enough, that's enough." He immediately stopped crying. I left the room.

"What did you say to him?" his mother asked upon my return.

Oh my! If only...


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