PuffLet me preface this entry by stating that I'm running on roughly 2 1/2 hours of sleep. (Just in case anyone's keeping score out there: Our little one's got a cold and decided to wake up 4 times at night the previous night, whereas my wife got real sick yesterday and was up from about 11:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. this morning.) And this lack of sleep while trying to work brings back memories and horrible Peter, Paul & Mary flashbacks...

Our 4 year old sleeps through the night now, but as an infant he full-out failed at sleeping. He'd wake up a few times at night, and it got progressively worse where it literally was every 45 minutes, he'd be awake. I even remember my wife nursing him in bed, I'd gently grab him, put him in the bassinet right next to the bed and sneak off to the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I came out, he was already back in bed with my wife. So yeah, a real restless, light sleeper.

Because of this and because I needed to work nights a bit (I used to freelance and do all my work at night from like 8 p.m. to midnight or 1), we made arrangemets that she'd go to bed around 9 and anytime he woke up, I'd run upstairs, grab him from his crib and rock him back to sleep. So there was a long stretch where I remember working on my computer, then hearing him cry and I'd run upstairs to rock him. To help, I'd put on one of the Best of Peter, Paul & Mary CDs we played for him. For some reason "Leaving on a Jet Plane" always seemed to calm him down. So with that song on repeat, I'd gently walk back and forth in his room till he fell asleep, usually after about 5 or 6 plays. Then I'd run downstairs, start working and, hey 15 or 20 minutes later, he'd do it again. Some nights I got away with only going up once or twice, but most nights I went up 3 or 4 I'd say. Do the math and tell me if you could stomach listening to "Leaving on a Jet Plane" these days without having the hair on the back of your neck stand up and your earlobes fighting desperately to close themselves...

And speaking of jet planes, I've got a great 72-hour Sale at Orbitz coupon for ya:

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