Sleepy Time

For the first six or seven months of Silas's barf-infested existence--he had reflux so bad that after the third or fourth time I got spit up on in a given day, I'd just forgo the clothes change and wear it with pride--sleep came in one of three ways: rolling around the Blue Ridge Parkway or a gravel road in the snug comfort of his car seat, swinging in his Fisher-Price chair, or in my arms after a long song and dance routine. He was, it seems, always on the move; that hasn't changed. I was in graduate school then, and I don't know how many times I pulled over to the side of the road after sleep found him, pulled out whatever book I was behind on, and started reading. If I heard a peep, I'd gently slide the gear shift to D and drive around until I thought it was safe to open the book again. But gas isn't cheap, and replacing the swing's 8 D batteries (it could actually simulate weightlessness on its fastest setting) also left the wallet wanting, so most of the time I fired up the CD player and crooned, pathetically but proudly, while shuffling about the room until he dropped off. I learned through trial and error that 80s pop did the trick best. Baby music CDs and traditional lullabies left us both bored, and my attempt at a high and lonesome sound to accompany bluegrass music sounded like cats fighting in an alleyway. No one could sleep through that. One night I even spun something from my very sparse collection of punkish metal, Rage Against the Machine. Three hours later his heart was still beating about 300 times a minute; he is truly born to rage against bed time.

Once a tenuous sleep was finally achieved the true dance began: the cribbing. As often as not, I'd end up just outside his door making all sorts of promises to God I knew I'd never keep as a first lone whimper grew to a crescendo of wailing. Sometimes I didn't even make it out of the door before the water works unleashed a torrent. As soon as I held him against me the crying stopped, and, just a minute or two after I thought I'd "put him down," sounds of "Hungry Like the Wolf" and the shuffle of two exhausted feet mingled again over the hardwood floor.

Then came the experiment. Tough love. Conversing about the shared struggles of parenthood with your peers can be an immense comfort; it's confirmation, I think, that you're not the only one plagued by doubt about your parenting skills. You're not the only one who sucks at this. Relating is nice, but advice from other parents is often about as useful as my nipples (and just how useless they are was a lesson Silas learned slowly, after much biting). A couple of these other parents convinced me that if I told Silas it was bedtime, gently placed him in his crib, and let him cry it out until he finally gave up and dozed off, my bedtime problems would finally be solved...IF I had the resolve not to go in and pick him up for two or three consecutive nights. It came down to a battle of wills. On the first night their kid cried for just 20 minutes before sleep triumphed. Their kid gave in to sleep without a fight the next night. I hate their kid. My kid showed the stamina of Pheidippides running from Marathon to Athens, except there was no symbolic death (i.e. sleeping), and I finally broke down and went to soothe him. Silas had blared demon-possessed screams for an hour and a half. I sought out the darkest recesses of the house and countered his cries with one of our familiar 80s mixes, but I could still hear him. And then the next night: second verse, same as the first. His stubborn cries only subsided when, after another hour and a half of languishing in guilt, I admitted defeat and went to him. I can still feel his tiny chest heaving against the hammer of my heart.

The next night saw an end to the very brief life of the crib. He was back in my bed, and would remain there for the next two and a half years. Even now, it's not uncommon to awaken to Silas's utterance of a single word that says it all, "snuggle," and find him wedging himself under the covers at four a.m. Sometimes I'll wake up in the morning surprised to find him next to me after he's tiptoed noiselessly across the berber and slipped under cover undetected. The music has faded, replaced by a bedtime story (or two, or three), and a long cuddle before he drifts off. Broken and spent, each night I still perform a Houdini-like escape, untangling myself from his clutches, still trying to catch up on reading (only now that reading is most likely to be in the form of a formidable stack of student essays).

Below are a couple of shots of two-year-old Silas, himself looking spent. In the first picture he's scooting around the bed, steering clear of the diaper placed neatly atop his jammies, as I incompetently cajole him to come hither. The most troubling thing about the second picture is not his outfit--boots and a hat and otherwise birthday-suited--but the bloodshot-eyes red digital reading that mocks me; it's 12:01 a.m. and the lights aren't even out yet. Silas's time with me has truly been a sleepy time, but sleepy time always finds him...eventually.