Spain Dad, a baby blog

Putting a baby to sleep is a little like jumping from a burning building. There are no best guesses or guaranteed results in these kinds of moments, only hot panic, something that looks a little like bravery, and hope for the best.

By the time the church bells had rung three times last night, April and I, and Alleke of course, had been awake for hours. We just sat there trying to speak the same language.

“Are you hungry?” we would ask as April nestled Alleke up next to her on the bed, and I stroked her soft legs.

“No,” she would wail, shaking her head and kicking her legs with such defiance I wondered if it was a bad sign she had so much character at such a young age.

“Do you need your diaper changed?” April asked, passing her off to me. I gently rested her body on a towel on top of our dresser, and pretending I was a veteran at the whole business and just too lazy anymore to actually undo her diaper, I unbuttoned her onsie and poked my finger in the side of her diaper, getting a look inside.

“Nope, she’s clean,” I sighed, actually a little disappointed I couldn’t change a sloppy diaper. At least that was something I could do.

April was sitting cross-legged on the bed. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the headboard. She was out of ideas.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” I asked, bouncing little Alleke in my arms, trying to fool her into thinking her dad was excited about the idea. She opened her eyes, blinked, then squished her face up like a dirty kleenex and began wailing again.

She seemed so strong then, roaring like a lion. I wondered if I would be able to outlast her till morning.

We walked down the long dark hallway to the living room, leaving April to recharge in the silence of our bedroom.

“I promise I’m listening,” I said, kissing her hot little forehead. “I’ve got all the time in the world,” I added, which was a promise I hoped I wouldn’t have to keep this particular night.

We walked figure 8′s around the coffee and dining room tables, and I just watched her crying there in my arms. There wasn’t going to be any easy fix this night. All I could do was watch and wait–and hope she would teach me something I didn’t know before.

As time passed, I began to see a pattern I hadn’t seen before. She would cry so strong and so hard until she just couldn’t anymore, and then she would pout a little bit and sniffle, and then she would just lay there in complete exhaustion as if she had just finished swimming laps. She would begin to drift off into sleep and her hands would begin drifting around like helium balloons.

Inevitably, one of her little fists would come floating by her little mouth, like a pop sickle on a stick, and she would lunge for it with her mouth trying to get a lick at it before it was gone. Of course good things don’t last forever, and she was never quite ready for her fist to be gone. She wanted more. So she would cry. And when she would cry, she would wake up. And when she would wake up, the whole process would begin again.

It was a question of taming those little fists.

Now I knew what I needed to do, but didn’t know how I would do it. First I tried the obvious. I wrapped her up like a little baby burrito with her tiny fists tucked inside the blanket. She wriggled free. Then I tried gently placing my hand over her chest, so her hands couldn’t reach her mouth. She wrinkled her nose and screamed immediately, giving me the clear message that babies don’t like either it when people tell them what they can and cannot do. Finally, I decided all I could do was charm her. I had to try to convince her that sleeping was better than sucking on that candy fist of hers. I sang to her. I massaged her legs. I chose her favorite position–lying chest down in my arms with her face looking outward.

I don’t think it worked. She still cried. We walked more laps.

I don’t really remember much of what happened between 3:30 and 4:30, but in the end, we were both lying there on the couch, she on my chest. We mutually decided that we had had enough for one night and it was time to go to sleep. We would pick up where we left tomorrow night–she screaming and me guessing.

And so the story continues…