“I’ve had him for an hour; it’s your turn.” K woke me with those words last night, or rather, this morning, at around three. It’s not an entirely uncommon occurrence, but neither is it really all that frequent. Like most things with infants, the trouble is, you never really know when it’s going to strike. A Tuesday night/Wednesday morning is a particularly bad choice, in my estimation, but there was little I or anyone else could do about it.

I took him in my arms and knew immediately it was not going to be a short exercise. The Boy’s head popped right up, and he glanced around the room, taking in as much as the blue-tinted nightlight could illuminate.

“Nah nah nah!” he cooed, then patted me on the shoulder — his way of saying, “All is well, Dad. Let’s go!”

And go we did. We watched a little bit of a documentary; we played a bit; I graded some papers. (My sarcasm was unmistakable in those particular marginal notes.) At four, the fussing began, and I thought, “Not that bad. An hour? I can survive that.” I walked the circuit through our kitchen and living room. The head plopped down on my shoulder. And stayed down. A few more circles, then up to bed. I lay him in his crib, took two steps away, and the howling began again.

Repeat previous paragraph.

At five, when he finally went down, I figured it made little to no sense to sleep for thirty to forty minutes, so I made the morning coffee and began wondering just what kind of a day was in store for us all.

Shortly after dinner, the inevitable.