Originally uploaded by o&poecormier

a rough night, little one. you are on the threshold of so many things these days that sleeping – so recently finally mastered, o thing of beauty – has suddenly left us, abandoned ship. i am bereft, blurry, unable to steer a straight course with the gaping hole of its absence sitting square across my forehead.

the shreds of my mind split into two camps.

i am agog that the human race survives in spite of these hallucinatory days that seem so common as to be unremarkable.

and i am suspicious, wondering what i’m doing wrong, what false idols of civilisation i’ve blindly bought into to thus rob me and mine of the natural rhythm of things? babies in tents and camps and caves must have slept, for millenia they must have snored beside their parents and sisters and brothers and aunties and the family goats or whatnot.

i tested this theory, minus the goats.

but about four months old, you, my cosleeping nursling, began vying for the title of Most Likely to Be Voted Out of the Igloo, or Off the Island. wide awake at 3 am every night. for hours. most unhappy. so we began training you to sleep in your little cot, teaching us both to learn to rest beside each other without spending half the night awake. i thought you were the one fighting rest, Josephine. but when you finally did sleep through, i popped awake every time you sighed or cooed.

sleep is a habit, that much is clear.

i got earplugs and we spent a week in heavenly habitual peace. i’d been thinking we’d soon move you into your brother’s room. my hubris called fever down on our heads.

you scared me, little one. so hot, burning hot, suddenly, in the middle of the night. i almost left you to fuss, not realizing. then i bundled you up in my arms, recanting on all the fine sleep training habits inculcated with such strain, and your skin shocked me. almost 104 on the ear thermometer that runs cold. i was awake then, bolt upright, hands juggling medicine bottles and cool cloths and Web MD. 29 minutes for the drugs to play paper rock scissors with the fever and the drugs won and i exhaled but now it has been four days and i’m not sure we’ve slept since and there are teeth on the horizon of your gumline and baby girl, it feels a bit much, really.

teeth already. so fast.

and not fast enough, if their coming lets the sleep come back so i can trade this river of disjointed thoughts for rest.