Wednesday, September 7, 2005

An Actual Little Person He surprises me sometimes, how he sounds just like a real little human being.  The way he giggles, just like real people giggle.   The way he sighs sometimes in his sleep, as though the weight of the world has just exhausted him.   He coughs, just like everyone coughs when they get something stuck in their throat.  He coughs the same way I do and the same way my father does.  He has a few good coughs to try and work it out, and then, if he can't get his windpipe clear, he clears it with one mighty cough, and he sounds like a little tiny person going "AHEM!"   It's amazing.  It's just like he's one of us.  Most of all, I've been watching him while he tries to fall asleep.  I've been doing that a lot this week.  Right around three months, they forget how to fall asleep without a good half-hour of screaming, thrashing, and crying.  We rock him, bounce him, sssh in his ear until we're sick of hearing ourselves, play his sleeping music, and he wails and wails until finally, he just stops cold, as if a switch has been turned off.   But the struggle while he's falling asleep is amazing to watch.  He fights so hard either to sleep or not to fall asleep - it's hard to tell which - and often, right when he's just about to fall asleep, his hand will drop or his leg will twitch minutely, and he lets out a sharp cry of anger.  It's like watching a little baby version of an adult going "dammit!" When that happens, you can't do anything else but keep rocking, cradling, shushing, and inevitably the pattern repeats over and over.  He'll fight to get to that perfect place, where all his legs and arms are in the right positions, and he's just got his head in the right position... almost there... almost got it... one more second here... A huge thrashing of limbs.  Waah!  "Dammit!" And again, and more fighting, and he has tears in his eyes now, and he lets out one last herculean shriek of frustration and bucks wildly.  WAAH!  "Goddammit!!  Why can't I get this sleeping thing to work!?" And then, boom.  He's out like a light. Of course, it's so shocking and sudden, it's all I can do to keep from laughing at his sudden comatose state.  Sometimes, I can't help myself, and I do laugh.  And then he wakes up again, madder than ever.  8:31:50 PM     Speak up!  []