I never intended to be a voyeur, and if the baby hadn’t been colicky, I wouldn’t have been. But now… now I don’t know what to think.
After all, who expects to be a voyeur at two a.m. in the sleepy suburbs? Honestly? That night, all I’d been thinking about was when I could get back to bed. When I was thinking at all. My son’s colic was in full sway and life had been reduced to scream after scream after scream. I bounced him. I walked him. I stroked his back and rubbed his belly. I wore a track in the rug walking around and around and around. All I wanted was for him to fall asleep, so I could too.
Of course, I could have woken my wife, if his screams hadn’t already done so. I suspected they had, and that she was intentionally turning a deaf ear, her head buried in her pillow. I didn’t blame Karen—the two months since William’s birth had been particularly hard on her. He’d been a lazy eater, turning his middle-of-the-night nursings into mini-marathons. At least I could sleep then. Which is why she insisted I take colic duty, even if it had turned into a marathon all its own.
But as my older sister reminded me, “this too shall pass.” My nephew had also been colicky, but he’d survived and was now the energetic terror of his preschool. When I’d complained… well, whined, really, she’d just smiled and told me that the colic wouldn’t last forever and that even little babies would eventually sleep. And she was right, because that night sometime after 1:30, William’s sobs turned to sniffles and then snores.
That was a preview of Babe in the Night. To read the rest purchase the book.