I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
August 30, 2008
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At night, the baby monitor sits inches away from my head. When my daughter moans in her sleep, I instantly wake up and listen fervently for another muffled sound. If my son starts wailing, I’m up in seconds, rushing to the kitchen to warm the bottle that will send him back to dreamland. At night, I’m in Ultimate Mother Mode.
But in the morning, all bets are off.
For some reason, I sleep most deeply starting at around five am. Bruiser wakes up between 6:30 and 7:30 and begins babbling merrily to himself- I don’t hear a word of it. I’m too busy sleeping the sleep of the dead.
Generally, Hubs wakes first, and begins stirring beside me. Then, he starts nudging me with an elbow. The nudging turns to kicking and boom! Finally, I’m awake!
“How long has he been up?” I’ll ask sleepily.
“About ten minutes,” Hubs will answer.
Whoa. The squawking is so loud on the monitor- How did I sleep through that? I have no idea, but I do it morning after morning after morning.
This particular morning, Hubs had to leave for work extra early, while the little ones were still sleeping. Without Hubs, I slept soundly, waking at last at… well… okay, it was 8:01, all right? I could hear Bruiser babbling, as usual. Had he really woken at this record late hour? Or had I, er, slept through it? Anxiously, I got dressed and rushed to the kids’ room. Punky was lying in bed, eyes open, while Bruiser chatted to her form his crib. So far, everything looked normal. But when Punky saw me, she sighed loudly.
“Mommy, you took so long to come to our room,” she said flatly. Uh oh. Thank God she’s only four and still has no concept of time.
“Oh, it hasn’t been that long,” I said. Yeah… just thirty minutes. Or maybe an hour? Who knows?
I know, I know, this doesn’t exactly qualify me for Worst Mother Ever. But it doesn’t make me feel very good about my mad mommy skillz, either. I mean, I always thought moms had some sort of inner animal instinct, allowing their own children’s sounds to wake them instantly, no matter how deeply they were sleeping.
Apparently, I was mistaken.
This post originally appeared on Parents.com.
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