Dad's Interesting Nights

Pete has been so wonderful to me during the nights. Because of my own health issues, it is imperative that I get all the sleep I can so that I can function with Piper during the day, so Pete takes the lion's share of the night duty and I am only feeding Piper.

Last night, however, I discovered just what a toll this is taking on him.

I woke at 4:00a.m. to hear Piper crying in her bed, right on schedule to nurse as I had expected. Pete woke too, and I told him that she needed to nurse. He grumbled something about having just gotten her in her bed, which left me wondering just how long they had been up since he took her to hang out with him at midnight, but I didn't get further explanation, as he dropped back off to sleep.

I fed Piper, burped her, changed her, fed her again, and she fell asleep while eating. So I packed her up, put her back in her bed, and curled up again under my covers, congratulating myself on a painless interruption of my night, and a quiet feeding that actually let Pete sleep for a change.

Fifteen minutes later, Piper began her usual snuffing and whining for her binky--she likes to suck herself to sleep. Pete startled awake, and I told him that she just needed her pacifier and I would take care of it.

"No, no," he mumbled, climbing out of bed. "I don't mind passing her."

The next thing I knew, he had gotten her up out of her bed, laid her on the bed next to me, gone out to get himself an extra blanket, and gone back to bed. I just sat there, staring at him.

"I just said she needed her binky. Do you just want her to sleep with us?"

"I thought she wanted to nurse." I had to strain to understand him because his words were slurred. He wasn't coherent at all.

"She just did. I just put her back in her bed."

Silence. The man was asleep again.

I grinned. I put Piper back to bed, with her binky this time, explaining to her that her daddy is a silly man, and then we both went back to sleep.

When I asked him about it this morning, he didn't remember a thing. Except watching two episodes of Chef in the study with Piper until all hours...

He really is okay...