Sleepless

She lets out a groan, a deep gut growl that will roll into a holler if I don’t lift her up quickly. So I do, I pick her up and take us to the couch to cuddle and sing quietly until we both drift in and out of sleep like a broken toy boat left on the edge of the shore until the tide tips and takes us away to the deep blue where we sink into sweet, silent sleep.  Later I wake to a sore neck and cranky knees and carry baby back to our bed, but when I lay her beside me,  she wakes and begins grabbing at me like a baker grabs at her dough, pinching my skin and dragging my hair through her sweat-sticky fist again and again. Her eyes are closed so it seems this abuse might be helping, but then I realize it’s keeping her awake, not putting her to sleep, and so again, I am lifting her up and laying her down and she is groaning her deep gut growls that roll into hollers and I am nearly weeping because I don’t know why she won’t just go to sleep. Go to sleeeeeeep, baby. I say, leaning over the mesh walls of her crib. You must be tired. I am so tired. Scott stands then and sends me back to bed, but she won’t let him lay her down either so he is carrying her and rocking her and eventually, he is landing on my warm couch cushion dent. I find them in the dark an hour and a half later. I can’t see them. It's too dark. But I can feel and find their bodies: her belly draped over his belly, her cheek resting on his chest. While I stand there wondering what to do, he wakes. I lift baby and press her head to my shoulder then lay her limp little body back in the middle of our bed. Beside her, he and I collapse and sleep until dawn.

For days, my mind feels like a garden left to weeds, dust and vines, it grows mad from sleeplessness while a hazy caffeine high tangles my thoughts into knots.

We have a nap schedule now. She isn’t a newborn anymore. At seven months old, it seems, she needs structured sleep. Our nights have begun a slow crawl toward a resemblance of serenity…though a tooth is peeking through her pink wet gums as a pretty little porcelain reminder that there will always be something: a tooth, a rash, a bad nap, a fall, a scratch. There will be more tears, hers and mine. Just as there will be rain as well as sunshine.

For now, good night. There is nothing else to write.

I have a very important appointment with my pillow.