Home

About Homedaddy

Archives

Subscribe

Tell A Newspaper

Contact

Music

Publisher's Area

Chasing the Sandman

Childless friends often ask how my life has changed since we became parents, and the thought has often struck me that this might be a good idea for a column. As I sit here nodding off at the keyboard, struggling to stay awake long enough to meet my dealine, inspiration comes to me: I want to go to sleep.

Emma still shares our bedroom, and although she has her own small bed, she spend about half the time in ours. She is getting used to falling asleep in her own bed, but when she wakes during the night we just reel her in.

Her ability to fall asleep in her own bed is still intermittent. Our technique in recent days has been for me to try first, and if I fail, to bring in the Closer. That would be Julia.

I usually read Emma some books before turning out the light, and then I try a story or two. If the story is boring enough, she'll fall asleep in the middle of it. I've learned the hard way to allow stories to trail off into silence rather than concluding them. Even when she has already begun to snore lightly, just hearing the phrase "The End" will cause her to open her eyes and say "'Nother one."

I've learned how to make stories double back on themselves and blend into one another. Emma will grow up thinking that Goldilocks and The Three Little Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Ugly Duckling and the Princess and the Pea are nothing but one long, a rambling tale full of gratuitous plot changes.

Another technique is to insert detail into stories to draw them out. Some of my versions of Goldilocks include sidebar descriptions of the rooms in the home of the Three Bears. Emma knows what magazines they subscribe to, what kind of material their curtains are made of, and how many sets of Daddy Bear's car keys are lost under the sofa cushions.

Eventually, she will go to sleep, and although she sleeps soundly most of the time, there are still enough interruptions to ensure that Julia and I still both walk around like zombies half the time, which is actualy kind of helpful for me since a normal day can include reading the same "Winkie the Weasel" book a dozen times.

Permanent insomnia can set in after so many months of interrupted sleep. Once the body gets trained to wake up every few hours, it's tough to get back to normal patterns.

The trick is knowing how to get back to sleep quickly, which is no small feat if you are a worrier like me. The other night I tried counting sheep, and after I reached about three thousand, I stayed up another two hours wondering where the hell I was going to keep them all.

send this column to a friend!
have a comment about this column?

© Todd Pinsky 1998-2002. All rights reserved.