Calling Mr. Sandman...

It is six in the morning and I awaken to Eli chuckling

"E-heh, e-heh, e-heheheh!"

three inches from my face. What he is doing there, I cannot at first comprehend. Doesn't this little bugger have a crib of his own? Then recall comes with a sluggish wakefulness and I remember: oh, yes. Atch put him there. Beside me on the big bed. In the early hours of pre-dawn.

I am trying to sleep-train my 8-month old son. I am wondering if it is too late at this point in time to undo the beddy-bye routine that makes slumbering with Eli in the same room a living nightmare. You see, I feed him on demand. And if by demand you mean the getting up out of bed, the half-blind shuffling to the crib to lift a crying baby out and the the heavy sinking into the lounging chair to nurse him, every two hours, then yes, you have got it right on the nose.

Were I younger and in full possession of my sleep-deprived faculties, I wouldn't mind night-feeding him up to his tenth month, as I had with Woog. But age and its accompanying physical infirmities are doing wonders to my perception of reality. Just this week, I find myself climbing into a car idling at the curb. It is quitting time at work and Atch is here to pick me up. But it is not Atch gazing down at me from the driver's seat. It is a stranger who is smiling at me in a puzzled sort of way. I hurriedly apologize and back out of the vehicle. Behind me, the building's security guard is trying his level best not to guffaw. I look left-a-ways, and there is Atch, leaning on his horn and looking daggers at me. Ah, the extraordinary life of the walking dead.

So I am in the process of attempting to Ferberize my son, as they say in the child-rearing books. I am going to let him cry it out in the night so he will eventually learn to sooth himself to sleep. In turn, allowing me to pay the interest on my sleep-debt. I come equipped with research and I implore Atch to bury his head under a pillow while I begin to disorient Eli's sleep schedule like a rigid taskmaster. I am confident and I am determined. And of course, I am doomed to failure.

Which brings us to the reason why the beloved subject in question is right here and now, spraying minute bits of morning saliva on my face as he hyuks it up with great enthusiasm. And I look back at the night previously, wondering where it all came askew:

It is bedtime at Door Number Five and I am tossing and turning in half-sleep, anticipating. Then it comes. A whimper. Building up to a full cry. I let it rise to a crescendo before I slide out of bed and gently attempt to pat him to sleep ("Mom's here, Eli...ssshhhhh....sleep). Eli cries harder. And yet louder.

In the big bed, Atch is groaning and slapping another pillow over the one he already has over his head. Eli is cranking up the volume. Then he is screaming. I continue to pat him and I hum. From deep within himself, my son is discovering his inner bullhorn, and he lets loose with passionate blubbering abandon.

An hour passes. I am nearing my wit's end, and my chest is near to bursting. What mother can stand the pitiful howls of her own child? With Eli's every tortured wail, my heart hitches in my chest. Then and there I resolve to murder Richard Ferber. Apparently, Atch feels the same way, because he throws off his legion of pillows and thunders his way to the crib. He picks Eli up, and immediately, as if someone has pushed the off botton on his remote, his screaming stops.

Atch carries the hiccuping baby to the big bed, and as soon as he puts him down and snuggles in next to him, both of them fall into deep sleep. I shake my head in wonder. Atch is certainly mellowing in his old age. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he relents to allowing me to co-sleep with a yowling baby Woog, all those centuries ago.

And so the next morning finds me struggling to peel my encrusted eyes open while my baby son is on his tummy, shuddering in a fit of giggles. I turn my head and behold the source of all this mirth. It is Woog. He is sitting on the other side of the bed and making silent gruesome faces, while his brother near busts his gut in glee.

"Good morning, Mommy!" Woog exclaims. And suddenly, I remember that it is summer vacation. School is out for the next two months and the hot days stretch out before him with all it's endless mischievous possibilities. Ah, so this is why he is up so early. And I want to ask him why why why is he up with the sun now, when he let me plead with his sleepy, kicking self to "please get up or you'll be late" during the previous ten months of preschool mornings?

I sigh instead and allow the high-piping sounds of his voice and Eli's laughter to wash over me, fuel for another grisly night of sleep training just around the corner.

Would anyone know the Sandman's mobile number?

All tuckered out after a rough night