Baby, Mine

**While I am at liberty to dress him up as a little chap, you better believe I will.**

Even though I don't have any kids in the 'newborn phase' at present, I do not take sleep for granted. Because the number of things that can go wrong in the sleeping machine are too numerous to count.

Generally, my kids are good sleepers. But right now, we've got nightmare and molar interruptions popping up like whack-a-moles. Once we think we've conquered the problem, 'WHAAAAAAA!!!!'

Last night was a doozy. Tiny woke up sometime in the early morning with a nightmare. Rockstar dutifully put her back in the bed and turned her lullabies back on. If there's one thing I've learned recently, though, it's that once she has a bad dream, she'll be in and out of our room the rest of the night until we let her stay. Since we still reside in a Queen bed (are you reading this, dear???), there isn't a whole lot of room for a third little body. I sleep fine with Tiny squished between us, but Rockstar objects to her foot in his rib.

After Rockstar and Tiny had done the back and forth several times (separated by stretches of time I'm not sure how to quantify except in increasingly drowsy exasperation), I said, "Let's just let her sleep on the floor next to us in her sleeping bag." She was thrilled and stayed quiet as a mouse the rest of the night.


**Do I look like I could cause trouble??**

Except, hello, Drummer did not get the message that his parents were done with this game! Just before 6, I awoke from a dream wherein I had been super annoyed that some baby had been crying for a very long time. And upon waking and realizing that my baby sounded like he had been crying for a very long time, I felt pretty guilty. I glanced at my comatose husband who was definitely not aware of the crying baby. He'd done more than his fair share (read: all) of the nighttime shenanigans thus far, so I dragged myself out of bed with a sigh.

Drummer was in that wide awake state where I knew he wouldn't go back to sleep if left to his own devices, but definitely needed more sleep. So I pulled him out of bed. "I am so not ready for this day to begin," I thought. And yet, I knew my alarm was going off in a mere 30 minutes. I pulled him close to me and sat in his rocking chair, hoping at the very least for a few minutes of stillness with him.

One minute led to two and then three and then, holy cow! This baby was sleeping on my chest! I was delighted. It had been a long time since I'd gotten to rock my sleeping boy.

As lovely as it was, my body felt desperate to lay down, if only for five minutes before I had to get ready for work. Drummer woke every time I tried to lay him down in his crib, so I'd abandoned that idea. Then I realized, 'Hey--I know where there's a vacancy in this house!'

Cradling him, I crept into Tiny's room, and maneuvered us into her empty bed without waking him. His steady breathing coaxed me into dreamland and there we lay--a mother and her son.

Rockstar crept in a little later to let me know that my alarm had gone off. I couldn't be moved. 'Come get me in ten minutes,' I said. 'I'll get ready fast.' I drifted off for awhile until I heard my husband's voice.

"You'll be late, babe."

"Okay," I said, but I hated to wake my little man.

Just then, as if on cue, his blue eyes fluttered open. He turned his face towards me and our eyes locked.


**Straight to the heart.**

In that moment, I knew that while my body was full of exhaustion and frustration, it was held together by one beautiful, golden word:

Grateful.