Middle Of The Night "Service"

The experience of your first baby is always...life changing. It doesn't matter how many baby, nursing, new mommy/daddy classes you attend, nothing truly prepares you for the jolt of reality about to smash you in the face when you bring baby home....no nurses or nursery, no adult to take over the night shift, no magic cream to make your nipples stop hurting, no yanna beninee spray to make your "area" feel better, and no secret weapon to make that baby sleep! Your on your own.

I was falsely lead to believe that daddy and mommy should share the responsibility of waking with the baby from the hours of midnight to 8 am. It seemed very logical to me that we would take turns even if I was nursing the young Prince. In my mind, it only seemed fair for daddy to bring baby to mommy (I'm super sore, remember) and burp and change him in between nursing on each side. Daddy could then help get little man back to sleep and into his crib, and we could crash into bed together once that was accomplished. Even as I am saying it, I feel sorry for the rooky who has this belief. What....a....load....of....crap!

Baby......is mommy's job especially in the wee hours of the night. Needless to say, I didn't take too kindly to this way of thinking. And on more than one occasion I'm sure I "accidentally" woke sweet sleeping hubby during the process of attending to baby; especially since I rescued my newborn from daddy's slumbering comatose body one of our first nights home. Baby has NEVER been in our bed since!

I woke in the painful hours of the night to crying baby and brought him to our bed to proceed with nursing, burping, changing, nursing, burping, lulling to sleep-it's quite the process! Daddy, however, was not in the bed which was puzzling. We had a tiny apartment (we were 19 and 20 people!); there wasn't anywhere for him to go to escape middle-of-the-night baby noise. But playing hide-and-seek with daddy would have to wait. Baby demands attention NOW!

Once I had successfully gotten baby satisfied and sleeping sweetly again, I went on a hunt for hubby (actually, we weren't married yet; so technically I was searching for my baby-daddy). I tiptoed as to not...make...any...noise to our living room -  first-baby mistake a lot of rookies make  - where I find my baby-daddy fully reclined in the lazy boy (indeed!) "au natural", TV blinking in the darkness, sound asleep. Of course, it was my duty to wake him from that sweet sleep and demand to know what he was doing. He was clueless as to how, why, what, and I was too tired-and annoyed-to bother. As he stammered clumsily to the bed he did an about-face and headed toward the bathroom. Whatever, I'm going to bed.

He made a lot of noise in there with the drawers and sounds of objects being moved, but I didn't bother to see what that fool was doing. I finally heard the toilet flush, and he came stumbling to bed. I didn't give it a second thought as to what he could have possibly been doing in the bathroom...other than the obvious.

However, in the morning I was enlightened as to the extent of my soon-to-be-hubby's craziness when he is awakened from his slumber! The contents of my bathroom drawers were lined up neatly along the edge of my bathtub....and there in my empty vanity drawer.....was my baby-daddy's pee! Yes, pee! Not only did he remove all of my things (thank you for that, though), pee-ed in the drawer, but then he flushed! I remember the flush in the middle of the night because I thought it was going to wake my precious Prince that I just got back to sleep (remember this is my first baby and when he slept NO NOISE was made). That fool pee-ed in my drawer and then flushed the toilet!! 

Of course, he doesn't remember any of it...from me waking him from his in-the-buff slumber in our chair to the urinating in my drawer...none of it sparks any part of his memory. This is not the last time that he will be crazy and inexplicable in the middle of the night but those experiences can be shared on a later date. I, however, have learned to make sure he is good and awake before requesting his assistance, movement, or otherwise "services" in the middle of the night.