The way I see it...

SLEEP

Don’t you hate when you do things that curse yourself? For example, I woke up at 2:30 a.m. this morning when Bowen woke up and I said to my husband, “I love waking up and thinking that it’s almost time to get up, but actually finding out you have a few hours of sleep left.”

I changed a diaper and thought Bowen felt kind of warm, so I gave him some Tylenol. He was obviously not feeling well because I think I might have gotten a combined twenty minutes of sleep between 2:30 a.m. and 5:15 a.m. when I decided to just give up. I come in about that time anyway to finish up the paper.

After failing to get Bowen back to sleep, I did what any desperate parent would do - I loaded him in his carseat and drove around town, hoping he would go to sleep. As I type this he has just started to cry because he resisted the motion and did not go back to sleep. I guess I have an editor-in-training this morning by my side.

My Christmas present from Aaron was tickets to the Lady Antebellum concert that was in Des Moines this past weekend. Jenna (fellow lover of country music) was my date for the night. The singer that went on before Lady A was Darius Rucker and he sings this song called, “It Won’t Be Like This For Long.” Here are some of the lyrics:

He didn’t have to wake up - He’d been up all night.

Lying there in bed - Listening to his newborn baby cry...

It won’t be like this for long

One day we’ll look back laughing at the week we brought her home

This phase is gonna fly by, so baby just hold on

It won’t be like this for long

As I was swaying back-and-forth with my snotty-nosed, footy-pajama clad, whimpering little guy in my arms, that song popped into my head. It’s just one night. Nobody likes to not feel good and I’m sure it’s worse when it’s a baby because they can’t tell you what’s wrong. Someday when I have four teenagers in my house (yikes!) I will long for the days of just having to get up in the middle of the night to rock a baby back to sleep.

As I’ve been typing this column I’ve been rocking the car seat with my foot. Guess what? We have a sleeping baby boy. It’s going to be ok, because it really won’t be like this for long, but that’s just the way I see it.