MY APARTMENT IS ten minutes from my office, so I'm home in flash. As soon as I get close enough to the door, I hear him screaming.
My brow furrows in concern. Quickly, I unlocked the door, taking off my jacket and follow his crying.
I get to the living room and I see an exhausted Nanny and my baby red and crying himself hoarse.
"Sir, I can't. I need a break."
I nod, tell her to take two weeks off. Thanking me profusely, she dumps Josh in my arms and hits the road faster than a roadrunner.
I look down at Joshua with a smile, he blinks up at me. His little fist hit his face and he yawns.
"Why are you scaring away your Nanny, Joshie?" He just looks up at me, eyes drooping. I rock him to sleep, trying to fix his bottle at the same time.
It isn't working. I make a mess, only having one hand, trying to read the instructions for the formula, make the milk, put in the microwave.
But I do it, and my hard work pays off when he takes his bottle. I carry him to his nursery, sit in the rocking chair and feed him, just watching him.
He looks more like his mother than anything, which is an unwelcome surprise. But he's the cutest little monster, because he's my little monster. And at least he has the Kane eyes; intense grey, nearly steel, that seem to glow.
Somehow, my mind wandered back to Red and Mini-Red. She's probably a single parent too, she's not married, and she always has her daughter with her. She's a control freak like me, which means she'd never let a Nanny take her child.
I rub his soft cheeks, still a little pink from his crying session earlier. He finishes his bottle in record time, so I burp him, lay him down in his crib, and go clean the mess I made.

HE WON'T STOP crying. He's eaten, he's been burped, changed, burped again. Nothing helps. My head starts hurting, and I glance down at him sadly. I wish I knew what he wanted. I hate hearing my son cry.
I pick him up, putting him in my arms, rocking him, but he doesn't stop crying even then. So I stop and I look at him. Joshua stops crying, and starts whimpering, which is somehow worse.
"What do you want? Daddy did everything, what else could you need?"
He starts up again, wailing. I brainstorm, rubbing his back as I pace and rock him. He's not sick, he's not hungry, he's not gassy, he's clean so what else do babies need?
Wait. Maybe...
I get him one of toys a stuffed little elephant. Then I sit down with him, and hold it out to him. He stares at it, quieting almost immediately.
I tickle him, and play make the elephant dance and he starts to giggle and smile. Bored. He just wanted to play.
We play for a while, and I do some things that I'd be laughed at for but, it makes my son happy and that's all that matters to me.
Soon enough he gets hungry again, and when he's hungry, it sets off a chain of other things he'll need. He'll need to be burped and changed. I'll probably have to put him something else, he spits up a lot.
Then he'll need to be rocked to sleep, and then I can take a short nap. It's only four in the afternoon and I'm tired.
I left the office at twelve. I crash on the couch I have in his nursery and sleep until he cries me awake again.
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