We just wanted the baby to sleep… and sleep she did.

The boy and his smarty-pants wife had foolishly left the wife and I in charge of their precious two-month old daughter, Blossom Savage. Yes yet another Savage in-law, but this one they used my wife’s maiden name for the middle name to make the connection even stronger.

When the baby is good, we call her Blossom. When she is a terror, we call her SAVAGE.

As grandpa, I’ve been determined to connect with her. I had nieces who as small children ran from the room and called me “that man.”

Sure those “children” are nearly 40 years old now, and they hardly ever run from the room. But they occasionally point and laugh and call me “that man” again. Usually when they are taking a margarita or a glass of wine out of my hand.

But grandchild; different story.

At two months old, her parents were still protecting their time with her and hesitant to let us just “take over.” Of course that changed when the girl hit 3 months. Now there is begging and deal making to get us to take her for hours at a time so they can run errands, go to the gym, or party with their single friends.

Funny how infants (and puppies) can so quickly exhaust even the most dedicated parents…

At two months old, the parents had a weekend away planned. A trip to northern New Mexico for a wedding. The wife and I would have the baby for most of a weekend. Lots of text messages and pictures had to be sent for proof of life.

The parents had a bed camera from Big Nanny peering over our shoulders and popping up on their screens — “they know when she is sleeping and they know when she is awake” in a kind of Santa Claus/North Korea way.

They were religious users of an app with a “schedule”. How much to feed, when to feed, when nap time is coming… I tried to enter data in the app once. But there were no words or menus. Just unreadable icons stowed in the smallest corners of the screen that were impossible to decipher without reading glasses — readers that are hard to find and put on while holding the baby and supporting her still bobbley neck. Icons that still made little sense peering through fuzzy readers… It might as well have been written in Chinese (probably was).

Fuck it. I’ll feed her when she is hungry, let her sleep when she is tired.

At two months, Blossom was often SAVAGE. At feeding time. Scream, cry, scream if food was not instantly available. At nap time. Scream, cry, scream, stare, refuse to sleep. Scream, cry, scream.

The parents were sometimes frustrated with their little Savage.

They had Youtube videos of chain saws. The grinding two-stroke engine either soothed the Savage beast or drowned out her cries. Either way better than SAVAGE screams in your ear.

They had a “bouncy ball” and bounced the SAVAGE sometimes for up to an hour until her little brain gave up on all the stimulation and shut down to sleep. If you tried to put her down before REM sleep, the SAVAGE came out again.

The wife (now grandma) couldn’t stand the cries.

“Babies are going to cry,” I would say. “This one just knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to demand it.”

“I don’t know where she gets that,” the wife said. “Her dad was not like, and I can’t picture her mother being that way…”

I bit my lip so hard it drew blood. A truthful answer could end in divorce (or more likely death). But let’s just say there’s not a single woman on the Savage side who is afraid of anything. The genetics are pretty easy to follow.

At nap time, I would try and rock the baby to sleep on my chest. It usually took about two choruses of the “Ants go Marching” to get her fully down.

The wife had a different solution.

“Let’s just feed her.”

With the Italian heritage that seems to be the answer to almost every question. Are you sick, eat. Are you tired, eat. We have stuffed their little dog Susan, on so many weekends, that our kids have to put their dog through “Fat camp” when they take her back home. Like dog; like baby.

“The app said she just needs 4 ounces…”

The wife made 6. Then gave the baby 2 more.

By the end of two bottles her little eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she’s passed out with a streams of milk drool flowing from both corners of her mouth, spilling over the lip dam and running down into the crevices of her neck.

At 2 a.m. the baby woke up. The wife got another bottle. Baby slept till 8 a.m.

“If we just keep her milk drunk, she won’t be able to cry,” the wife said.

Made sense to me. Must have made sense to Blossom too. She hardly cried at all and slept most of the weekend.

Fast forward two months. Blossom is now 4 months. Rarely cries; often laughs a joyful baby laugh that makes all the adults and dogs jealous. When she is hungry she stops whining as soon as you walk toward the fridge — she knows what’s coming. She falls asleep in 5 minutes on her own. Chain saws are no longer necessary.

There’s a deep stock of mother’s milk in our freezer just in case.

“I think we have a year’s supply,” the wife said.

“That’s more like a weekend for you two,” the daughter-in-law said.

And that part is still true. Until grandma can replace that bottle with pasta and bean burritos (long story — but a good one), we will keep the SAVAGE away — Blossom will be milk drunk and happy.