The new normal

At 3:30 this morning, Lyla woke up and started yelling from the crib. Rough translation: "Get me the fuck out of here!"

I hope this is just a stage and not the new normal. Before the stage, she'd fuss half-heartedly for 30 seconds and go back to sleep out of courtesy to her parents and a mature appreciation for sleep's inherent benefits. Now she has discovered that her screams have great power, and she vigorously rejects the Spider-Man mantra that with great power comes great responsibility.

So I entered the nursery and surveyed the scene. Lyla was standing in the crib, binky in hand, no vomit and no failed diaper.

"Mama!"

"No, just me. Do you need medicine? Do your teeth hurt?"

"No!"

I picked her up, sang the ABCs, and laid her back down. "Good night."

"Mama!"

As I closed the door behind me, she began to howl.

In our bedroom across the hall, Julie and I listened. It wasn't the scared cry or the in-pain cry, but the mad cry. How long do you wait it out when it's 3:30 in the morning?

Five minutes into it, Julie rolled out of bed and crept across our room. As her hand touched our doorknob, the crying stopped. We froze. Julie tiptoed back to bed.

The silence continued. I felt Julie settle into sleep beside me. I waited for Lyla to cry again, but it never happened. Almost three hours later, Lyla woke up at the appropriate time and in a cheerful mood.


Not me. I never got back to sleep.