Maybe I'm not quite ready for #3

Last night was a doozy.

Around 11:30pm (a popular waking time for both of my children) Derek and I heard Judah crying in his crib. Being the helpful, involved parent that he is, Derek got up to replace the guggie or remove the fat thigh from the crib slats or otherwise tend to whatever sleep-preventer he might happen upon. I stared up at the dark ceiling, asking God, please, for a full night's sleep. However, it quickly became apparent by the volume and intensity of Judah's cry that he was NOT going back to sleep, and Daddy does NOT have boobs. So in I traipse in my enormous purple robe.

Maybe if I top him off now, he'll sleep until 8! Yes!

Not so much.

If you have spent any significant time around small children, you know how effectively they are able to communicate without the benefit of speaking the native tongue. Judah dramatically rejected a midnight snack a la mama, and continued to cry, HARD, while Derek and I looked at each other, trying to read lips and speak between screams, frantically guessing at our 9-month-old son's charades. We actually considered the emergengy room at one point (a few hours in, mind you) but both of us remembered this story and decided to give it a little more time. And look for the simethicone drops.

A note on infant gas drops: they *might* work. For as often as they recommend administering them, and the amount of time they take for effect, it's really a toss up as to whether the drugs or the bouncing and jostling and HYSTERICAL WAILING loosened the bubble. After 8 hours of off-and-on crying, interspersed with brief periods of careful sleep with a baby on my chest in whatever position he found tolerable for 30 minutes at a time, I. Do. Not. Care.

At one point in the wee hours, the hours that moms of newborns know so well, the forsaken hours that aren't night but aren't yet morning when the whole world seems to be sleeping except maybe truckers and YOU, in one of those hours I heard from God.

I was feeling sorry for myself, the momma martyr, rocking Judah with *just* the right frequency and intensity to keep him from screaming, wondering if poor sleepy me would see my bed before daylight. The message that came was abrupt and clear: So you're sleepy? So what? You've deprived yourself of sleep for far less noble causes than this. This little tiny boy needs comforting, and I have chosen YOU for him.


{Speechless.}





I think it goes without saying that I'll be skipping my daily computer fix during naptime today, in favor of my bed (or couch, or heck, I bet the kitchen floor would suffice.)

Also, around 8:04am, a spooky, gurgly, other-worldly sound emerged through the guggie from the deep, twisting caverns of my dear son's digestive system. He has been peacefully sleeping on my lap ever since.