For the first time in ages, K and I slept in the dark last night.
No, not the “first time in ages.” The first time in almost four months.
Since L’s birth, we’ve kept a small red light on beside the bed. You never know when the girl’s going to wake up in a pacifier panic, or spit up and need emergency cleaning, or any number of other horrid, life-threatening things.
But last night, K thought we should do an experiment — open the blind to the window on her side of the bed and see if that provides enough light. And it did.
And so for the first time in weeks and weeks, I lay there in the dark, no red light filling the room with an oddly calm-yet-angry glow (red light is just really not all that pleasant at all), and it honestly felt as if it was the firs time in my life that I’d slept in the dark. It felt like going to bed without brushing my teeth, or coming home without hugging, kissing, and playing with the girl, or eating cereal with skim milk — it just felt unnatural.
Next step — get the girl to stay in her crib all night, even in the midst of needing a 1:00 a.m. feeding…