the ultimate sacrifice

At about 7:00pm last night, with the baby recently fed and relatively content, I told Mike I needed to lie down for a little bit, but that I didn’t want to be out for the night. "If you fall asleep," he asked, "when do you want me to wake you up?" "Maybe half an hour."

At about 9:00pm, I opened my eyes as Mike tip-toed into the bedroom with a sleeping baby. Thank god he hadn’t listened to me, didn’t even remember the part of the conversation about the "half an hour" (that’s my guy). Mike put the baby down, and I mercifully kept sleeping another 2 ½ hours before I was called forth for snack time. After the 11:30pm feeding, there was a 2:00am feeding, and a 4:00am feeding/don’t want to go back to sleep time. I got Isaac situated again by 6:00am, and he, in turn, woke me up again at 7:00am. Some days you just have the munchies.

By 8:15, I was part of an all too familiar scene: I was reading – two articles down and one more given up on out of boredom – and quite awake, and the boys were asleep, Mike next to me, and Isaac crashed out on top of me.

I was too desperate for sleep and the odds of a re-awakening too risky to move my floppy baby. So, as I have many a night before, I attempted to just slide down, baby where he was, and get some rest. This move inevitably results in – the wedgy. Do I even have to mention that they don’t talk about this part of motherhood in any of the prenatal classes?

I’ve already lost my chance to guilt Isaac with the story of a long and painful birth, but I’ll always have the wedgy. Sure, sure, I’d throw myself in front of a U-Haul truck to save him if needed, but that’s a one-time, spontaneous sort of sacrifice. It’s the little everyday things - the pebble in the shoe, pea in the mattress, underwear stuffed up the butt crack - that show your true love.