“How did I get here?” I wondered, as a scrambled some eggs up for my wide- eyed child. It was around 2 a.m., and he (we) had been up since midnight. I hoped that with minimal fussing he would have gone back to sleep, but when after almost two hours of patting, rocking and even nursing didn’t do the trick, I knew this was no ordinary night.

I guess the “right” thing to do would have been to leave him in his crib, lest he get the idea that nighttime is party time, but sometimes you just have to surrender to the universe, as my mother says, and just get through the moment.

After spending all of that time trying to calm down an overtired child, I knew he was too worked up to sleep, so I sat him in his highchair, whipped up some eggs and joined him for an early morning snack. 

Satiated and sleepy, we headed to the baby room. My son went into his crib without much protest, and I was thankful to get some rest — even if it was only a few hours.