A smirk tugs at his lips, and I can tell he wants to kiss me. But I hop off the stool before he can, swiping the screwdriver from him in the process and walk over to the changing table, fully aware that he’s watching me.
Chapter 26
Ashlyn
“I think we broke him,”Zane says over Bentley’s screams.
“He’s not broken, he’s a baby,” I say. “And babies cry.”
“This much?” he asks.
“Sometimes,” I answer.
“This feels like more than sometimes,” Zane groans, and while I am a little annoyed with his whining, I am a little frazzled myself. It’s one thing to work with crying babies at a daycare. It’s another to go days without adequate sleep because Zane’s new bundle of joy doesn’t have an off button.
“I wonder where the term sleeping like a baby came from?” Zane asks, wiping his hands over his face.
“Probably a baby sleeping during the day,” I say, passing Bentley off to him. We’ve been trying to take turns with him, letting the other sleep. But it’s really hard to get any quality sleep with a screaming baby in the house.
“How did you deal with this before?” he asks, bouncing Bentley with no success.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Make sure you’re holding his head.”
Zane readjusts his hands to support Bentley’s head. “I mean, when you worked at the daycare. How did you handle this non-stop?”
“Well, I dealt with it the best I could. Then at about 4pm, I handed the kids back to their parents, went home, and ate a Klondike bar with a glass of wine,” I answer. “God, that sounds amazing right now.”
“You know what else sounds amazing right now?” he asks, and I know what he’s going to say. “Sleep.”
I let out a sigh with a smile. “Why don’t we try something else?”
“Like what?” Zane asks. “I feel like we’ve tried everything.”
“Not everything,” I say, carrying Bentley into the bathroom, which, like the rest of the house, has become overrun with baby stuff.
Zane watches as I set the baby bath in the tub and fill it with warm water and lavender and chamomile baby soap. Then I turn on some lullaby music on my phone and undress Bentley before setting him in the tub.
“How do you always know what to do?” Zane asks as I hold a now calm Bentley with one hand and gently wash him with the other.
Because this is the only thing I’ve ever wanted…, I think to myself.
“Instinct, I suppose,” I tell him.
“Well, your instincts are amazing,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the tub and watching me. “I feel like I’m in so far over my head.”
“I think most new parents feel that way,” I tell him.
“Yeah, but most new parents know they’re having a baby. The baby wasn’t dropped off by a stork 4 months after the fact,” he says. I giggle before picking Bentley up and wrapping him in a hooded baby towel.
“Don’t listen to your daddy, he’s just a little sleep-deprived,” I say.
“A little?” Zane asks.
“Okay, daddy is always a bit grumpy,” I say, and Zane smiles.
We take him into his room. We converted one of the spare rooms into a baby room a couple days ago. I put his pajamas on him, and as I lay him down in his crib, he starts to softly whimper. Zane grabs a pacifier from the dresser and gently eases it into his mouth, and we slowly back out of the room with a sigh.
“I don’t know about you,” Zane whispers, “and I don’t have any Klondike bars, but I could really go for a glass of wine.”
