What time is it?
My vivid dreaming and pleasant slumber is interrupted by the sound of frantic crying heard through the tinny speakers of the baby monitor. I am jolted to consciousness as I suddenly realize my setting and that my daughter is obviously in need of parental comforting.
“What time is it?” I ask my still-groggy wife with a nervous urgency revealing the high stakes that rest on the answer. Early in Mikayla’s life I asked that question because I was sleep deprived and had no sense of time and needed to get my bearings. Later, I asked so that I could gauge how long she was sleeping and how close she was to the magic destination of “sleeping through the night.” Now I ask knowing there is a lot more riding on the answer.
You see Beth and I play a game called Late-night Baby Russian Roulette. In order to share the burden caused by nighttime feedings, dirty diapers and Mikayla’s recent bout with evening gassiness, we have developed a system. Any crying before 1:30am I have to deal to with (since she is probably not hungry) and anything after 1:30 Beth deals with. (Somehow I also ended up with post-feeding post-1:30 crying as well). So now when I ask what time it is, I know the answer can either catapult me out of the warm cocoon of my bed or give me permission to, in good conscious, put the pillow over my head to drown out the sobs as I drift back to sleep. You never know which is in the chamber when the baby monitor goes off.
“What time is it?”
BANG – 1:10am
Dang…. I’m hit…. and you get a blog post.