Babies Are Incredibly Cute. Unless They're Being Super Creepy

My little guy is awesome.  He's a pretty happy baby most of the time (I'm not bragging here, I'm thanking the Grand High Poo-bah of the Universe for throwing my wife and I a bone) and he's smiley and adorable and we love watching him.  He's cute when he sleeps.

In the daylight.

In the darkness, there are concerns.  Baby bad dreams where he cries in his sleep - they break your heart.  The moaning that isn't bothering him much but will keep his mom or me awake.  Sudden inconsolable crying in the wee hours (this happened more early on and is not so much a problem anymore, knock on all the woods).  And of course (especially for mom) there's the "IS MY BABY STILL ALIVE I HAVE TO CHECK ON HIM TO MAKE SURE HE'S BREATHING EVERY 10 MINUTES OR ELSE HE MAY NOT BE BREATHING IS HE BREATHING I DON'T THINK HE'S BREATHING OH GOD SOMEONE GET ME A MIRROR TO HOLD UNDER HIS NOSE SO I CAN MAKE SURE HE'S STILL PUMPING OXYGEN IN AND OUT OF HIS TINY LUNGS...oh, he just moved thank God," phase that happens...and in some cases continues to happen...for a long time.


But those are not what I write to you about right now.  What I want to discuss is how my adorable, smiley, giggly, happy little guy somehow turns super-creepy in the middle of the night.

Here's what happened.  He was making some sounds and I was up, so I went in to check on him.  I noticed that his eyes were open.  But even though his eyes were wide open, staring sideways out of the crib, he made no movement of recognition when I approached him.  He didn't turn his head to follow me when I came in the room, he just kept staring sideways out of his crib.  Even as I stood in front of him looking down at him, he didn't seem to register my presence.  It was strange.  And then he moved his head, slowly, toward me.  And when I say slowly, I mean it was horror-movie-cliche sort of slow head turning.  He rotated his head a quarter turn, but it took him like 10 seconds to do it.  And then, expressionless, he stopped when he was staring straight into my eyes.  His face muscles didn't move, didn't twitch.  The only thing that moved was his neck.  And then he stared into my face like he was judging what my soul might taste like.

I was so off-put, I literally said out loud "Whoa, that was way creepy, dude," then crammed a pacifier in his gob and got the hell out of there.  The next time he made noise, I let my wife go deal with it.  Even demons don't want to mess with an over-tired newborn's mom.