give it to him?”
“No, put it in the freezer for a few minutes so it’ll get cold. Then wash your hands and rub his gums with your finger and lulu him.”
“Lulu?”
She was quiet again before responding. “He . . . uh, babies . . . they like soothing luluing. Most do anyway. You rock him and then lulu softly.” She started doing this sort of humming thing, but instead of just humming, she said luuuluuu luuuu luuu luuu, over and over.
Once again, Orlando did as he was told, started rubbing the baby’s gums as he rocked and mimicked Danica’s lulus to the same tune she used. All the while he held the phone between his ear and shoulder. The baby calmed almost immediately, staring at Orlando as he listened to the luluing. “Holy shit,” he whispered between lulus. “It’s working.”
“It is?” She sounded almost as excited as Orlando felt. “Has he been drooling a lot?”
“Yeah, I keep having to change his bib. Sometimes even his little shirt because it soaks through the bib and wets his shirt too.”
“Well, then for sure it’s his teething that has him so cranky. Keep several teething rings in the freezer or even just the refrigerator so you can rotate them. They make over-the-counter ointments you can also rub on his gums, but I’d use those sparingly. It’s better to try and use natural stuff and stay away from the meds whenever possible.”
Orlando continued to lulu softly even as she spoke. He stared down at the baby, who amazingly began to doze off. “He’s falling asleep,” he whispered, feeling completely relieved. “I can’t believe how easy that was.”
“Once you get a better hang of this, you’ll start to narrow down what the issue might be faster. If it’s anything not too serious like this, there’s usually one or two specific things that’ll fix it pretty fast.”
Waiting until the baby had completely knocked out, Orlando continued to lulu softly, appreciating that she stayed on the line until he put him down. Once he was down in his crib, Orlando turned on the baby monitor and camera and tiptoed out the room. “He’s out.” He smiled big but felt drained. “Jesus, where do I sign? We need you in our lives like yesterday.” He heard her laugh softly—nervously—and immediately regretted his choice of words, so he went on speaking quickly. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean for that to sound weird or anything. I just couldn’t get ahold of my mom or anyone that might point me in the right direction. So, you calling when you did was perfect timing. I’d begun to worry we might never hear from you again. I knew he’d been teething, but the fever threw me. I thought maybe he was coming down with something. When I get anxious, my head goes completely somewhere else.”
“No need to apologize. That’s fine. Being a first-time parent can be stressful. But yeah, mild fevers are common when babies are teething. It can even cause diarrhea from the excessive saliva that ends up in their belly and loosens their stool, so don’t be surprised if that happens.”
“Now that you mention it, it’s another reason why I didn’t think his being so cranky had anything to do with his teething. After changing him earlier and his stool was so loose, I was definitely thinking he was coming down with some kind of stomach bug.”
“Nope. Normal.”
She sounded so sure it made him smile. “You’re not even licensed—which apparently doesn’t even matter—and you know all this?”
Again, she laughed, sounding a little nervous. “I do a lot of reading when it comes to all this.”
“Okay, so seriously though, I know you said you already have one job, but any chance you can squeeze us in at least once or twice a week?”
“I can actually.” She sounded a little excited now. “It’s why I’m calling. I just got off the phone with Nine. My daycare thing was mostly an . . . on-call thing. To be honest”—she paused for a moment and he thought he heard her mutter something under her breath but couldn’t make what out it was—“most of my experience is from helping my sister, but she can’t afford to pay me much, and she really doesn’t need me to help her. I just do it for the experience. It’s why I’d been considering finding another job altogether. So, I’m available more than the minimum three days out of the week Nine said he’d need me at the shop. But