Perhaps I was dreaming

Ask any parent of a small child what they miss most about their pre-baby lives, and I'll bet you $100 the answer is unanimous -- sleep.

Some babies sleep through the night early. Others take longer. Some people hire sleep experts to help them with the process (I want a potty training expert this time around...I'd pay real money for that!). And those sleep experts aren't cheap and aren't easy to book; as you can imagine, they're in high demand.

We were really lucky with Lily; she started sleeping through the night at 7 weeks. Honestly. For 8+ hours at first. Soon she was dead to the world from 7/7:30 p.m. until 7 a.m. It was heavenly.

Anna took a bit longer to come around to the concept; she got hung up on the 5 o'clock hour (maybe she's bound for a Wall Street job in another 23 years, if those jobs still exist then). By 10 1/2 weeks she was sleeping for about 10 hours a night. Life was good again!

But any little thing trips her up. Ear infection. New tooth. Congestion. General grumpiness. If there's anything out of the normal, my sweet baby is up during the night. Usually only once. But, uugh, you try going to work and actually being productive when you had to get up in the middle of the night. Not easy!

The last three nights, though, Anna has been slumbering away. A minor miracle considering the fact that she's so congested she's got gross goop draining from her nose day and night. And a brewing ear infection (Dr. conformed fluid in her right ear last night, although no infection as of yet).

So last night, when at about 4 a.m. I heard crying, I stumbled blindly (literally, I couldn't find my glasses) in to the baby's room....only to discover a peacefully sleeping child.

But the crying continued.

I made my way to Lily's room. Yup. She was the pre-dawn culprit. She was, in fact, crying. Complaining that she was SO. HUNGRY. SO. SAD!

I asked if a little snack would tide her over 'til breakfast. That seemed to do the trick. We negotiated for a second over what, exactly, that snack would be and finally settled on goldfish crackers and water.

Off I went, shuffling to the kitchen, to gather the snack. Imagine my surprise when I returned, less than a minute later, bearing the fruits of my kitchen raid only to discover a sleeping child. Soundly sleeping child.

So I don't know if she was talking in her sleep. If I was asleep and imagined the entire thing. Or if her allegedly empty stomach decided that not even it could eat at such an ungodly hour. Who knows. I chock it up to one more bizarre parenting experience. One more "notch" on my belt.