We became one of the bad parents last night, or so said the people whose comments I was perusing on some websites I found by Googling “crying it out” from my phone while laying in bed.

It was midnight, four hours after putting Lucy to bed without a fight. At 11:45 – newsflash! – the crying began and didn’t stop. Story of our life; yawn.

To say my frustrations reached a boiling point would be like saying taking a tired toddler down a toy aisle for a present for someone else is a teeny bit of a bad idea. “I AM SO TIRED,” I cried when Lucy started her nightly routine – as in, that really awesome, hoarse cry that almost hurts your chest. “I don’t know what to do!”

Dave stared at me from the doorway: should he or shouldn’t he go in there? He leaned toward rescuing her or, rather, picking her up for a 20-minute rock in the chair or a third of a bottle … Yeah. I’d had enough. Seven months of no sleep ended NOW. Or so help me.

“Don’t go in there!” I whisper-yelled. He rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, leaned against the door frame. “Just – don’t.”

“What are we going to do?”

“She can’t cry forever!”

Only, ha! She just about could; she was about five minutes short of forever. The wailing only grew quieter when she pressed her face into the mattress. Her heaving and screaming and cry-til-you’re-breathless stretches tore my heart out. Grrrr. We went in to give her the pacifier back every so often but it was already wedged between her two angry little teeth. We said “shhh” and didn’t make eye contact, just like you’re supposed to.

We tip-toed out and read Facebook statuses on our phones to pretend we weren’t listening to the most heart-breaking sobs in the history of baby-rearing. We pretended she wasn’t yelling – in baby-speak – “You two are the worst parents EVER! I can’t wait til I’m 18! I am SO OUT OF HERE.”

And one-and-a-half hours after her nightly routine started, it just stopped. No quiet, gradual winding down. No baby-speak expletives yelled in our direction. Nothing – primal screams one second, silence the next. I sighed a breath of relief so deep it thrust my heavy head onto my soft pillow like a magnet. I slid into a coma-like sleep.

And we slept eight hours. All of us.

Eight. Hours. Bad parent or not, I am so well-rested today it’s kind of scandalous. I couldn’t even feel guilty about it if I tried.