Sleep, baby, sleep

I am soothing a reluctant sleeper as he lies in his crib, protesting. He’s on his tummy, his wee butt in the air, his face flushed with the vigour of his indignation, his eyes closed. He really is tired. He just needs to let go. And so I pat his back (not something I do all that routinely, really), and speak words of comfort and consolation.

Want to hear? Want to hear ‘comfort and consolation’, Mary-style? My voice is soft and crooning, pitched a little lower than normal, a steady thread of soothing white noise. And the words?

“I know, I KNOW! It’s just awful, what we adults do to you. The abuse! Insisting that you get enough sleep to be healthy and happy. Awful! Outrageous, even. How dare we? It would be much better to run around miserable and exhausted all day long, I’m sure. I don’t know HOW you put up with it, I really don’t. I should be ashamed of myself, putting you to sleep in a comfy bed in a quiet room.”

I can keep it up as long as I need to.

It amuses me and, as it’s all said in warm and soothing tones, he relaxes to the cadence, rather than the content, of my words. Because really, the point is that I’m here, right? I don’t have to think he’s being reasonable or sensible. Because he’s not. Not at all. Fight a nap? Is he INSANE? Some days I would kill for a nap. Truly.

Well, okay, I guess I really wouldn’t, since I haven’t yet, and lord knows I’ve had opportunity and motivation.

But when I have a kid who is fighting tooth and nail to resist the very thing I’m craving … pearls before swine, I tell you. Pearls before swine. So no, I’m not particularly sympatico with his position on the matter.

“Oh, the inhumanity! How can we treat you in such a terrible fashion? How do you manage to suffer the cruelty? A nap! How dare I?”

Aaaaand… he’s asleep. And I’m amused, rather than exasperated out of my mind.

I’d call that a win-win.

Naptime just got cuter

(Yes, I saw him playing with that teeny Clifford the Big Red Dog. But he must be able to play in his sleep because whenever I moved around to the front of the cot, his eyes were squinched tight, tight, super-tight shut! Amazing child.)

Sleeping like a baby…

I’ve always found that to be a cruel, cruel expression, btw. They sure look cute when they sleep, but… when it’s your child sleeping, and that child is, oh, less than three or four months old, the parental thought process can be a tad fraught. How long will it last? How sound it is? I need to get some stuff done… but I’m so tired! Should I nap first, or get stuff done? Could I maybe do BOTH??? (HA!) I’m so tired! He went down late… should I get him up early so he’ll fall asleep at a decent hour tonight? (HA!) Tired, so tired! Will the neighbour’s damnable yapping dog wake the baby? She’s been sleeping a long time… should I wake her? But I’m just sooooo tired….

If you’re of a sufficiently creative turn of mind (and, I suspect, if you’re sufficiently sleep-deprived), you might even use some of the baby’s nap-time to play fun games with baby and a camera.

I love it… even though I know that when my babies were that age, there is nooooo way I’d have risked my baby’s sweet, precious, desperately-longed-for moments of slumber by messing around, setting up the scene around him/her.

I wouldn’t have… but I’m glad this woman does!

Aren’t these hysterical?

(And I hope she is sufficiently grateful — which is to say, down on her knees, thanking the universe through tears of amazement grateful — for a child who sleeps that soundly!)