This post was originally called “Greetings from the basement”

You know, the basement where I slept every other night for a couple weeks earlier this month (or was it September? I can’t remember.) because some toddler who likely won’t remain nameless started waking up twice a night and hollering for stuff. Like water, or apple juice (as in, "Apple juice! Apple juice! APPLE JUICE!"), or cuddles (as in, "CUDDLE ME!"). Or Rachel (as in, "Go away, Susan!").

Trying to pacify him often involved pulling him into our bed, where, inevitably, he would end up lying perpendicular between us, feet on my side. On my head. Leaving me sleepless but unwilling to risk moving him for fear of waking him. Because, when push comes to toddler feet in my sternum at 4:30 in the morning, I’d rather lie there in discomfort than actually have to get up and function.

At least, Christoph Niemann had the good grace to fly in all the way from Berlin and sneak into the bedroom one early morning to do a little sketch, which made me feel so much less alone.


But really, too tired to write about it all again. Besides, now that I’ve actually got around to it, Isaac (see?) is more or less sleeping through the night again. I’m sure I just jinxed that by writing it, but, you know what? I’m so past believing that any particular voodoo on my part — not least what I write about him on the Internet — has any particular effect on his sleep patterns. It’s not me, it’s him, a fact verified by what I heard him chanting in bed the other night as I walked past his door at about nine o’clock: "I’m in charge. I’M IN CHARGE."

Seriously.

The early-morning wake-up calls are still, sadly, the norm. But at least he makes up for them by being adorable a lot of the times. He talks a little bit like a Sprocket, full of slightly odd, almost inappropriate questions: "You want to touch my hair? It nice? It soft? You got soft hair? You got a car? You got money? In your pocket? You being friendly?" And, my favorite, his description of me nuzzling him: "You put your nose in my eye? It nice?" Yes, you crazy baby, it nice. Now go to sleep.


Thanks to M.A. for the Niemann reference.