Midnights, March: 7

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Babies, they say, resist sleep when learning a new skill. As far as I can tell, Albie’s newest skill involves digging his little fingernails into my cheek and tossing my face to the side so he can take a gander at my brains through my ear canal. Then he gets his wee paws in there and starts digging around like a badger scrabbling after earthworms. 

Otherwise he's practicing crawling. Earlier tonight when I laid him on the changing table, he surprised me by immediately rolling over, planting his palms, and scuttling backward, his feet flailing among all of the Changing Things. 

“Look out, Mama!” he hollered. “Time to scoot! It’s scootin’ time!” 

Son, nooo! I called after him, but it was too late. He’d scooted right away.

Midnights, March: 5

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Special 1:30 am entry: 

Nothing—nothing—feels worse than listening to your own baby cry. 

“What about inserting hot needles under your toenails and then soaking your feet in lemon juice?” you ask.

Damn, buddy. That escalated. 

Well, is the baby sleeping soundly? Then I shall take the needles, thank you. 

“What if you suggested doing something you thought would be kinda cool and a teenage girl responded with ‘Let's not and say we did’?”

Okay, CALM DOWN, you monster. You can't just throw that phrase around. That shit is lethal.

Midnights, March: 4

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My husband’s birthday was today (yesterday? the day directly preceding this night) and the baby decided to celebrate by not taking any naps. He'd go down in his crib, all but asleep, for the express purpose of napping, but then he would startle awake as if to say, HOW DARE YOU LET ME SLEEP THROUGH EVEN ONE SECOND OF DAD'S MOST SPECIAL BIRTHDAY, MOTHER. Which is sweet, but then when Bill got home from work, Albie could hardly keep his little eyes open.

He didn’t even get to try his first bite of cake.

Midnights, March: 2

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That was pretty bold, Yesterday's Carrie, to assume me capable of whipping up something funny at 3 am. This is an hour for scoundrels and thieves. (What does that even mean? I have no idea. I'm so tired.)

I used to do my best writing at this time of night. But now? Well, I just tried to mentally break down a sandbox to a 1:16 scale model, but something definitely went wrong along the way, because this thing got tiny. I guess I could use it as a mental ashtray. But why did I try that in the first place? To what end? From what possible beginning? Thoughts are squirrelly this time of night.

I'm not funny at 3 am anymore. Rather, you can't wake up at 3 am and be funny. You can stay up this late and be very funny, but an alarm set for the wee hours is not conducive to humor.

When I pick Albie up to feed him, I know he's extra hungry when he manages to dive to the side in the air so that he's horizontal in my arms. “Allow me,” he says, saving me the trouble of shifting him into position. “Shall we start with the left side tonight?” It is adorable—and slightly embarrassing that my infant son has the type of core strength I could only dream of. 

Midnights, March: 1

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The title of this post is a misnomer: I'm actually writing these at 3 am after sneaking down the hall to feed my seven-month-old son. We snuggle into an honest-to-goodness wooden rocking chair with beautiful swirling sweeping carvings of ginkgo leaves and a homey creak when I stand up. Albie has a wee snack to tide him over till morning while I write a little something on my phone. It's not the neatest system—should I be gazing down beatifically at his perfect face instead of squinting into the blue light? Probably. Alas. May the poor, neglected face forgive me.

The return to writing is new. Until a few days ago, I would stumble in here and do my best just to stay awake by reading or scrolling or letting dark thoughts prop my eyes open. I can't say what exactly brought me back to a place where I could write again; I'm certainly not any less tired than I was before. Maybe it was a change in the weather (the last day of February granted us a glorious, warm afternoon drenched in golden late-winter light, and I have a week of rain to look forward to). Maybe it was just time doing its work (we go through seasons, you know, of consuming-mulling-creating). 

Whatever the cause, I'm feeling better these days, folding motherhood into myself rather than the other way around. And writing. In a dark room at 3 am while rocking, rocking, because there is no other time for it. 

And it feels like letting out the longest sigh.

I'll try to write something funny tomorrow.