and so it goes

Jonah’s sleep is so much better and mine is so much worse.

Why, insomnia? Why?

Is it because I’m 40? Is this some kind of pere-meno-wha?-z’all thing? Oh dear.

Or just the moon?

Not that Jonah didn’t wake up at 2:30 a.m. last night. Just that he went right back to sleep while I, who had fought so hard for so many hours to get to sleep, then couldn’t get back.

And then I forgot I hadn’t slept until 3:30 p.m. when suddenly my entire body turned to molasses.

But now it’s 9:30 p.m.-ish and I have a sneaking suspicion that sleep is going to elude me again tonight.

For no good reason.

I will say this (before I step away from the computer in case that has something to do with this late-night de-slumber-fication though maybe I should just move to Australia instead?):

I am really liking having our nights back. I am really liking that Jonah is in the crib at 7 p.m. and asleep soon after. I am really liking that Scott is Captain Bedtime which allows me total freedom to cook lovely dinners that both of us may eat at 7:30 or 8 (rather than the previous version of our nights with me having to be in the room with Jonah fighting for his sleep the majority of the time and then both of us standing dazed in the kitchen at 8:30 or later, trying to figure out what to eat — or worse, when Scott was in the ring and I was in the kitchen, assuming the end was near, dinner completed — and cold hours later by the time he emerged).

I miss I miss I miss being bedtime person. Y’all knew I would. But there is so much space around our evenings now, the constricted feeling is leaving us, rings of loose elastic dropping to the floor.

Perhaps the insomnia is a vestigial organ? Post traumatic stress.

+ + +

I am out to lunch with a friend of mine. Scott is working at home, and minding Jonah who is napping. When the boy wakes, I will be summoned.

The phone rings at 2 p.m.

They’re calling from the potty to give me the poop report.

My friend whom I am with is not currently a mom. I try to explain to her why the pooping on the potty is so exciting, how it’s really a group accomplishment. The development of an awareness of timing and cues on our part, the willingness on his part, all coming together to… Plus we like not having to change poopy diapers as often.

She looks at me just a little bit funny.

You really have to write about this, she says.