Blessing or Curse?

I have yet to figure out whether my son's insane waking times are a blessing or curse. On the one hand, waking up at four a.m. is hard as hell. Especially when it takes an hour and a half to convince a babbling toddler to shut it and go to sleep. On the other hand, once said toddler goes to sleep, I get a very few precious moments of me time. If I could be guaranteed that kind of time every morning, I'd happily get up at 4 a.m. almost every morning. Almost.

However, it's the uncertainty that gets me. For example, I began writing this around 6:15 a.m. this morning. My little one had been asleep for almost an hour, I had had an opportunity to have a pretty decent breakfast and was looking forward to some time spent venting and babbling on my blog while glugging some coffee. But it was not to be. As luck would have it, as soon as I put my fingers to the keys, I heard a loud and incredulous "DAH! Dah dah dah dah....Door?? Go DOOR? For BAH?" over the baby monitor. Then crying when he realized he was alone. Blast. Scrap that plan.

Still, those moments I do get in the morning are like a weird guilty pleasure. Perhaps it's because they're so hard-won. After spending more than an hour putting the kid back to sleep, I feel like I need a few moments to do a victory dance at least. You know, before passing out again.

Ah, well. Tonight is my husband's night, which means he gets up with the little one. Unfortunately, since my mom is in town after today, Ragsy is back in our bed since we're short a mattress and he doesn't agree that he can sleep in his crib. He'll agree for about two hours, then stringently disagree. For about three hours. It's just not worth it. I value my hearing too much. Regardless, it's not much of a night off when you have a 28-pound kid slung across your neck (why, oh why doesn't he do that to my husband? Why must I routinely have my airway cut off while my husband sleeps peacefully, unencumbered, on the other side of the bed? Or alternatively, with Ragsy tucked sweetly against his shoulder?).

There is truly a reason kids are this cute. So you don't really sell them to the gypsies.