Things that go "waah" in the night

Whenever Matt's out of town overnight, my imagination runs amok. Somewhere out there, I believe, there's a weirdo with an ax who's out to get me. It only takes one. Every night he's gone becomes a relatively sleepless one, as I plot strategy for either thwarting intruders or escaping them every time one of the cats so much as yawns a little too loudly. I even asked Matt to buy me a rope ladder once.

Now that I have a mini-me, I know I was crazy. Instead of an ax murderer, there's a kidnapper with his or her sights set on the cutest baby in the world: mine. I'm even suspicious of strangers who take too much of an interest in Kalina. Why do you need to know if she's sleeping through the night?

Seeing as Matt was out of town last night, I braced myself for a busy night as I simultaneously tackled would-be marauders and fed and changed a baby who was coming off one of her fussiest evenings ever.

Kalina finally dozed off around a quarter to 8:00. Exhausted already, I headed downstairs for some snacks and TV for an hour before my brand-new bedtime. I noticed it was dark: a bad sign. Marauders like the dark. I flipped on the front porch light--an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Finally bedtime arrived, and, as I predicted, I was wide-eyed in the dark for quite some time. I wisely used the time to plan my strategy. I knew that:

1.) Would-be kidnappers would have no intention of harming Kalina, since she's so cute. They would simply want to silently secure her and sneak out of the house and into the night without being detected
2.) My baby monitor would be some help, as chances are Kalina wouldn't go quietly
3.) Our stairs squeak loudly whenever Kalina's sleeping (I haven't noticed whether they do when she's not sleeping), and the stairs are the only practical route to and from Kalina's nursery
4.) My cell phone was right beside my bed, and police are out en force on Friday nights in Durham

I decided that I had the advantage in that I wake up whenever Kalina blinks. Seeing as I'm about as tough as a marshmallow Peep, my challenge would be to remain calm and silent while I, in fact, actually let the weirdos kidnap my baby. My second challenge would be to follow them, not letting them get out of sight, while calling 911.

I also wondered how they'd react if I simply opened the door and growled a Momma Bear growl at them.

(I'm not kidding, by the way.)

Somehow, I fell asleep. At 2:00 I was awakened by Kalina's grunts and pre-cries. Kudos, Child, I thought. Six hours is a respectable amount of time to sleep. With no thoughts of simply replacing the pacifier and hoping that would work, I fed her. So far so good.

And then came the diaper change. The key, by the way, for nighttime feedings and diaper changes is to keep things as low-key and quiet as possible. Wake up yourself and the baby as little as possible, and you might actually both get back to sleep relatively easily. Two trips downstairs to try to dig up an extra pacifier and adjust the thermostat, and two bright-eyed lamplit "episodes" later, I was dripping sweat, frustrated out of my mind and ready to feed her again. The pressure is astounding at that time of night.

Then I looked at the clock. Why is it 12:24? Why isn't it 2:24? Dang. I knew I was in for another night feeding, and probably an early-morning one as well. Our baby slept better as a 3-week-old. Fortunately, Kalina went back to dreamland easily enough.

Which is more than I can say for me. Wide awake, I worried simultaneously whether Kalina were too warm or too cold, and wondered when the marauders would arrive. I also calculated, as I can't help but doing, that so far I'd gotten probably a little less than 2 hours of sleep. I finally drifted off again.

At 3:30 I awoke to general fussiness. Was Kalina finally being kidnapped? She wasn't. I then lay awake until 4:00, when she fussed again, this time definitely hungry. I calculated an additional hour and a half of sleep, bringing the total to 3 1/2.

The next time I woke up it was a glorious 7:45. And, thankfully, Kalina was fussing happily and hungrily in her crib. Somehow, we'd both survived the night, and chances are we'd make it through the day (day being lighter than night). Thanks to my constant vigilance, she got 11 hours of peaceful sleep, oblivious to the dangers around her. I managed 5 1/2 of not-even-close-to-peaceful sleep, but at least I never had to pull a Momma Bear on anyone.