Pardon me while I rest my eyes …

Kitten this week has decided that There Be Monsters. Or she’s had a couple of nightmares combined with gas pains. In either case, she’s spent most evenings this week with at least one bout of being up in the middle of the night, demanding love and hugs and attention.

Margie has borne about 70% of this, I think (it may be more, if I managed to sleep through any of the episodes). Last night it was pretty even. Around 3 or so, she got up, in response to the wailing child. The baby monitor, alas, is good enough to transmit sound, but not quite good enough to actually understand what’s being said. I heard prolonged comforting and discussion about this and that.

Then it sounded like Katherine wanted to go potty. No, she wanted to go in Mommy & Daddy’s bathroom. On the way, we paid a visit to Daddy, who obligingly sat up and muttered something encouraging.

Shortly thereafter, evidently out of ideas, and with Katherine unwilling to go back to sleep in her room, Margie tried bringing her into our bed, in hope that she’d be comforted by our presence and swiftly fall fast asleep.

I think that’s called projection.

Unfortunately, Katherine associates Mommy & Daddy’s bed with weekend morning play time. To be fair, though, she did give it the old college try. It wasn’t her fault that a car drove down the street, requiring extensive commentary. Or that Indy-kitty decided to jump up onto the bed, too, at one point.

Eventually, it became clear it wasn’t working. That’s when Bad Daddy swung into action, removing her to her own room.

Long wails and moans and gnashing of teeth (and a bit of door pounding) later, Bad Daddy decided he needed to be the one to get up and comfort her. He observed it was already 4:30a, so he had to get up in half an hour anyway.

Katherine was delighted to see me, and proceeded to show me how she plays in the morning — arranging towels and blankets on the floor for her stuffed animals to sleep on, etc. She very cutely put down on the floor a pillow and a book and a sippy cup for each of us. Daddy took the hint and lay down on the pillow, on the desperate chance that she would do the same and fall fast asleep.

Yeah, right.

I wanted to get back into my room by the time my alarm went off (having failed to turn it off when I arose, zombie-like). So as the clock ticked down, I changed Katherine’s diaper, and sadly told her that Daddy had to go. She protested quietly at this, but seemed to have calmed down some, and consented to lying up on the bed. I read her a short book (Boynton’s But Not the Hippopotamus), gave her a kiss, and snuck out.

To find Margie lying over on my side of the bed. “How do you turn off this thing, instead of just making it snooze,” she said, referring to the alarm clock, which was announcing 5:01.

I gave her a quick debrief on the child, and took my shower.

So if I seem a bit bleary-eyed or groggy today, or unable to end a blog post with a witty comment … well, there you go.