While I Was Sleeping

You ever read an article about parenting and feel good about yourself because the advice they give is something you've already come up with on your own? "Put jackets on the kids when it's cold? Heck, I've been doing that for ages. I must be an awesome parent." The other day I read an article about getting kids to try new foods. I meant to click on the one giving me the latest fantasy football advice but I'd already read too much by the time I realised my mistake. Imagine my frustration when I couldn't find a running back on any team named Avocado. Anyways, one of the points of the article was that kids are more open to trying foods when they participate in the cooking of that food. All this time I thought I was being lazy but it turns out it was good parenting.

"Ok, you guys devil these eggs and I'll be back after this inning, I mean in a moment."

The food should be almost edible once they learn to read a recipe. I wonder if they touched on that issue later in the article. Maybe I should have read the whole thing. Once it had me feeling like a good parent though I didn't see any reason to read further. Parenting is like gambling; quit while you're ahead.

No matter how great I may think I am at this parenting game, I'm still not at the point where I can do it in my sleep. I often do it when extremely tired (you ever fall asleep at a red light?) but when I go to sleep my A game goes out the window. I'm told last night was a prime example. The little one was sleeping in the room she's sharing with her sister. That's going pretty well, 2:45 is the latest she's made it so far before ending up in our bed. So she's sleeping and then around 2 wakes up crying. I go get her and bring her to our bed so I can change her diaper and then she can cuddle her mom while I make a bottle for her. Everything went well and I moved her back to her little bed. Apparently, my wife didn't realise I'd moved our youngster. She woke up a little while later and questioned me when she couldn't find the baby.

This is the part I have no memory of. According to her account I told her I'd put the baby on the floor. She was a little skeptical but apparently I was adamant that our youngest child was resting safely on the floor. According to her there was some pointing and a great deal of certainty on my part. I wasn't convincing enough as she went to the kids' room and found them both sleeping in their beds. I wish I could say that was the end of it but I can't. Apparently, again I have no memory of it, my wife got up later in the night to go into the bathroom and vomit, a little HG alone time. At the same time our oldest woke up and was calling for something. On her way into the bathroom my wife asked me to go deal with the situation. My response was a confident "OK". Five minutes later she came out of the bathroom to find our little girl still calling for assistance and me sleeping in the exact same spot I'd been before her morning puking. From what I've been told it was frustrating.

This next one is my favourite because I almost got i right. Our youngest was still just a baby and slept in a crib that was in our room. In the middle of the night she woke up crying, as per usual. My wife asked me to hand her the baby as she grabbed the already prepared bottle. I didn't roll over and go back to sleep. I didn't tell her something crazy like she already had the baby or "Go back to sleep, we don't have a baby". No, I sprung into action. I rose from my slumber, reached down to the foot of the bed, grabbed the baby and handed her to my wife. At least I thought that's what I was doing. In reality the crib wasn't at the foot of the bed and what I'd done was handed her the dog. I was certain I was handing her the baby though. Before you judge, have you ever tried to tell the difference between my kids and my dog in the middle of the night? Yeah, I didn't think so. One more reason I hope my kids never ever read most of this crap.

So apparently being conscious is an important factor when it comes to parenting. At least in my case. At least there's hope that will change over time and I can take solace in the knowledge that it doesn't seem to diminish my skills as a pet owner.