Fumbling and mumbling in the dark
The baby was crying. There's a point between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., when single people are busy flirting, or making omelets, or whatever single people do, that a parent's mind shifts from "The baby will go back to sleep any second" to "the neighbors are going to call the Division of Family Services."
"The baby's crying," my pregnant wife muttered.
I looked at the clock. It winked 1:34 a.m. at me in red lights that looked a little too angry to trust with the right time.
I pretended to be asleep which, given the decibel level of the baby, my wife didn't buy. Nope, not for a minute.
"The baby's crying," she said again, nudging me with her foot.
At 1:34 a.m., it's my job to let out the dog in the winter (if we had a dog), haul in logs for the stove (if we had a wood stove) and defend the home from men breaking into the house to steal our TV.
Unless the baby's robbing us blind, I'm not budging, I thought as if I had any authority in the house.
"Are you going to get up?" I said, pulling a pillow over my head.
One of the biggest mistakes husbands can make, apart from insulting your mother-in-law's family recipe for anything, is to assume you get to sleep when there's any noise in the house _ especially if your wife is in any one of the three stages of pregnancy known as the stubborn-mesters.
Yeah, I just said that.
"I'm pregnant," she said, pushing me toward the edge of the bed.
Those words can mean a lot of things.
"I'm going to mow the lawn."
"I'm pregnant." (Translation: You don't love me ... you pig.)
"How about salads tonight?"
"I'm pregnant." (Translation: You think I'm fat ... you pig.)
"Honey, I love you."
"I'm pregnant." (Translation: If you really loved me you'd go get fudge ... you pig.)
See how that works?
I pulled myself out of bed, the alarm clock now showing 1:38 a.m. and I think it gave me the finger.
When I got to the baby's room, he had wedged himself into a corner of the crib, his little butt sticking into the air. And, of course, he was asleep. I pulled his blanket back over him and walked out of the room, my toe launching a darkness-camouflaged talking Elmo into the dark.
"How was he?" my wife asked as I crawled back into bed.
"Fine, fine," I said. "He's just worried he's going to forget what you look like."
"I'm pregnant," she said, pulling the covers off me and rolling closer to the wall.
Yeah, a major problem with being a male is our inability to know when to shut up.
The baby started crying.
I got up. Being a dad means never sleeping again.
