On sleeping babies

My brother had an amusing post on his blog about babies sleeping (or not) through the night. My wife and I have joked about this as we've waited for my sister, who is expecting to adopt a baby in the imminent future. I quipped that with the first baby, you have a baby monitor so you can know when s/he is fussy and attend to the baby's every need. While we were too poor at the time to afford a baby monitor, I remember waking our first daughter up in the night to change her wet diaper because the nurse told us she should be changed every few hours. Everything must be carefully sanitized before baby touches it, and every evening is spent talking or reading to baby and complimenting your spouse on what a gifted and beautiful offspring s/he produced and making parenting plans for how your child will get into CalTech/Julliard/West Point and eventually change the free world.

By the fourth baby, my brother and I at least both run the fan at night because we know the little one is crying and we don't want to be bothered. Diapers are okay unless leaking or smelly, the "changing table" is whatever spot is near at hand, and the ten second rule is well in play for anything baby might stick in his mouth (including, last week, the live snail that crawled across his path). Story time is as likely to be done by older siblings as by you, you're feeling good if all of your kids are dressed when they leave the house, and when you consider his cognitive development, you proudly proclaim that your child is not in the left tail of the bell curve.

Meanwhile, our oldest is trying at the same time to grow up (she's been calling herself 10 for months now, though it's not her birthday yet) and enjoy the easy life of kid-dom. On the other hand, my wife and I are trying at the same time to maintain her childhood and encourage her to be more responsible and help out more with family chores, so we're all in the same boat. Now where did I put that parenting manual they gave us when she was born? Oh, yes, here it is.