This is your infants brain on caffeine

This evening my wife, Alicia, and I were getting some things done and left Sammy to his own devices for a bit. We do this pretty often. He seems to enjoy the freedom and trust that it entails for short periods of time. The way our house is set up we have basically sectioned off the front of the house as childproof and the back as adult room. The front is the living room/play room and the bedroom/Sammy library. Then the back of the house is the kitchen and study.

Well, I left for a moment to go get some creamer for some afternoon coffee. When I got back I went into the study to speak with Alicia and left Sammy in the front room to play. We heard him making his normal giggling and googling sounds when of a sudden we heard him make a new sound. This was a very sad sound. Not an upset cry or a holler to get our attention, but a kind of sad whimper, as if he had seen something sad in a movie or just finished reading a tear jerking novel. I wasn't in a hurry but I did begin to make my way to the living room door to peak in on him. AHHHH, I had forgotten a cup of coffee that i left on the coffee table earlier. Double AHHHHHHHHHH! Sammy had the cup to his mouth and was leaning back. I rushed in and he looked up at me as if he knew that he was not supposed to be doing that. He has often gone for my cup and just as often I have deflected his attempts. He knew this was not within his realm of allowed activity. I believe that the expression of sadness that we heard was his knowing, his cognitive dissonance with what he had just done. That to me is the truly amazing thing about this moment.

Then came the wait. We had no idea how much coffee he had actually consumed and were anticipating the worst. Shortly after this episode Alicia had class and I was left trying to get dinner prepared. Sammy began to wail. I was unable to comfort him at all. This is the worst feeling, not being able to comfort your child. He did eventually go to sleep but not before I held him for a good hour, crying in what seemed to be agonizing pain. He did break a new tooth today so this may have played a part. I put baby ambasol on his gums to no avail.

After he woke up and we had dinner, of which he ate precious little, he went wild! Alicia usually does the bedtime routine and he was all over the place. Crawling at comically top speed, standing and falling in the bed, leaping forward to fall into his mothers face. I played with his a bit too. He laughed uproariously when I swung him to toss him lightly into the pillows. He chased the dog, almost over the edge of the bed. He finally asked to nurse by pointing at Alicia and smiling, then nestled in frantically. I left them to it. It must have been another good hour before Alicia came back into the study frazzled and exhausted from the effort of this nights bedtime rituals. Moral of the story, infants react fairly strongly to caffeine! Keep it away from them at all costs.