hello? are you there?

So this obsession with sleep persists and if you can imagine, Ben and I differ in opinion on the great, if not wholly vital importance of attaining it. Ben was just commenting to me late last night while laying naked on the changing table after he managed to crap up his backside, right out of his diaper and all the way up to the base of his chubby neck [resulting in his second bath of the evening], that he feels this whole sleeping thing is mucho overrated.

“Slumber,” he dignified, “is for the weak-minded and most fragile of souls.”

I was tempted to retort with the erstwhile, “Oh yeah. . .well. . .what do you know!? You’re only three months old!”, but alas, I couldn’t reasonably transfer the words from brain to lips in my current state of sleep deprivation.

Instead I inquired to my son, who was looking quite determined on his back madly trying to grasp his toes with his fingers, “How the heck did you manage to get the poop in your hair?! You barely even have any hair to speak of, nevermind that it is growing [slowly] almost 15 inches away from your butt! Wha. . . how?” At this Ben laughed (a silly, short cackle complemented with a few well placed dimples) and told me I needed some sleep.

Feeling fragile and weak-minded, I brought my stinky son downstairs for his final feeding and some White Sox baseball. It wasn’t long before he closed his eyes, resting his free-of-poop head on my forearm, leaving me to the remainder of my chores and personal hygiene habits. Of course it took me another three hours to finish the arduous journey into bed, at which point Ben subconsciously saw it fit to remind me with a stirring from his adjacent bedroom, that he hadn’t gone anywhere and would be seeing me in two to four. Sure enough, three hours later my baby-monitor alarm set off [and just who the hell, may I ask, bought that for us?] indicating our 2:30 a.m father-son bonding time had begun.

“You look tired, dad,” Ben said.

“You look hungry.”

“Now, you know,” he responded, taking a break after 4 ounces of thawed breast milk, “I was just kidding about the weak-minded thing I mentioned earlier.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. . well. . I mean, I guess I just don’t like to sleep because I just hate not being able to share my time with you. With so much fun to be had, why can’t we just stay awake and goof around all of the time?”

I carefully considered the thought, and feeling warmed and wanted, responded, ”Ben, I love you, and I love spending time with you. But when daddy doesn’t get enough sleep, all of a sudden he starts imagining that you have a vocabulary and a perceptive outlook on life. You’re three months old. Get some sleep.” I don’t think he even heard me, so soon he fell back asleep.

I’ve said before how cute I think babies are while napping, but the sleep that follows an early wake up call brings out their cuteness ten-fold. I’ve been trying to cherish these special interludes while I can, difficult as it is at times, even if I’m imagining my son speaking to me as I clean the crusted poop from the folds of his neck.