Captain's Log- 7:30 AM- Wednesday
It's over. The long national nightmare is finally over! At 11 months, 3 weeks and 2 days of age the girls have finally begun sleeping through the night. They did it together as a team, on the same night and at the same time. It was perfection. They are now on their 4th night in a row where they sleep from 7:30 PM till 6:30 AM. Let me repeat that so it sinks in real good. That is 11 hours of uninterrupted, quiet bliss... for Daddy.
It all began, as most things do, with a crucial and tactical decision made by the wife. It was Sunday night, around 11PM and I had just gotten home from work. I don't usually work weekends but I was involved in a special work project that required me to log some pretty long hours on Saturday and Sunday. What that meant was that Treicy was alone with 3 kids, two of them being rambunctious, mobile infants, for the entire weekend. She, naturally, dominated the situation like a pro and ended up having amazing social media pics of her and the kids at different playgrounds, video game arcades, pizza parlors and parks. Really? Had that been me alone with 3 kids for 2 days I'd be barricaded inside the living room in my underwear with a S.W.A.T. team outside, surrounding the house. The hostage negotiator would be yelling at me through his bullhorn:
"Put the popsicles down! That is not an appropriate lunch for children!"
But I digress...
So I come home from work late and just when I'm getting out of the shower I see Catalina on the monitor standing up in her crib demanding attention.
"I got it" I tell Treicy. "You've been with them all weekend. Lemme just get dressed real quick."
"Thank you" came the sleepy reply from under the 37 blankets and 19 pillows in our bed.
So I go into the closet and put on my favorite long shorts from my beloved UT Longhorns basketball team and a white tee shirt. When I came out to the bedroom Treicy is sitting at the edge of the bed watching the monitor.
"She's down" she said. "She lay herself back down and went back to sleep while you were getting dressed."
"You're kidding" I said.
"See for yourself."
She was right. I couldn't believe my eyes. Cat was back in her usual snoozing position. Face down... tiny booty up. Seconds later, Renata woke up. She wasn't her usual loud self, however. She just kind of sat up and was looking around in a daze. She was making baby noises, but nothing close to her usual late night tantrums. I, instinctively, started towards the kitchen to get a bottle when Treicy stopped me.
"Let's see what happens" she said.
"Really? You're gonna let her cry it out?" I replied. "She's just warming up. She's about to unleash the dragon. She's about to open the gates of hell!"
"Okay... you've been binge-watching Game of Thrones, again."
"I'm serious." I said. "She's about to throw a tantrum and wake up the other one. Then we'll both have to get up."
I don't think so" she said. "Let's give her a minute."
I didn't agree, but I went along. Renata stayed awake for 20 minutes just playing with her pacifier and making baby talk noises. My heart was breaking. She was patiently waiting for one of us to go in there and pick her up. When we didn't, she simply rolled over onto her belly and went back to sleep. We sat there watching the monitor for the next hour and a half, waiting for the next baby to wake up... it never happened. Not then... not for the rest of the night. We woke up the next morning feeling like it had all been a dream. We entered their room and I was expecting to find a disaster area with decapitated teddy bears, baby blankets torn to shreds and the words HELTER SKELTER scrawled on the walls by tiny fingers with red raspberry jam (their favorite). But it was the complete opposite. The room was impeccable and they were both awake. Just sitting there in their cribs looking around and talking to each other in their own secret baby gibberish language. When they saw us, they flashed huge smiles and got all goo-goo ga-ga on us
"WHO'S CHILDREN ARE THESE!!!!" I yelled.
The answer is short and simple. They are the new and improved versions of their former selves. Ever evolving and ever changing. We just achieved a major milestone. I know that the future holds many more formidable challenges... many more serious situations that will make this one seem so trivial when we think back on it. But this is all we have for now. And this is huge. I can literally feel my sanity returning to me the more REM sleep that I get. I am confident that I will soon be back to functioning like a normal human being again. Maybe I am being a bit dramatic... but I think I've earned the right. So I am about to say something that I've been waiting 11 months to say. Ready? Here it is: I am the proud father of a pair of amazing, gorgeous babies that sleep through the night.
Damn, that felt good.
Captain's Log- Friday- 9:14 PM
Even-though the girls are now sleeping through the night, the struggle is not over. There is still a crucial time of the day that needs 2 able-bodied adults present and ready for battle and that is the 7:30 PM feeding. This is the final feeding of the day. This is the feeding where they get changed into their pajamas and get their skin moisturizer put on and their hair cream all the bells and whistles that go into putting pretty little girls to sleep. So this is a tough task to pull off on your own... at least it is for me. It takes a long time to apply lotions and creams and ointments to squirming babies so the other one will usually get fussy while waiting for her turn. Then, once you have them in their PJs and ready for dinner they will both want to be first to feed because they are sleepy and cranky and starving. It's a tough act to pull off by yourself, believe me. But that is exactly what I had to do last week. Treicy and Esteban took a quick day trip to Puerto Rico in order to take care of some family business. They, literally, flew in and out on the same day so it wasn't a big deal but it did put me in the dreaded 7:30 PM feeding zone without a co-pilot. It was a struggle, but I finally managed to get them fed and dressed for bed in their favorite pajamas. They were both very cranky and there was no way that I was going to be able to put them to sleep at the same time so I went with an old trick that is a bit of a cliche but it definitely works. I put them both in the car and took them for a little ride around the neighborhood. It worked. The motion of the car... the classical music... they were both asleep within 10 minutes. The problem was once I got them back to the house they would wake up the moment I tried to get them out of their car seats and start crying. So I went for another spin around the neighborhood... and then another... and then another. By the time we finished our 4th trip around our lovely neighborhood, it was already close to 9PM. I decided to just sit there in the driveway for a moment and try to gather my wits and figure out an idea for getting them out of the car without waking them... and that's where Treicy found me sleeping when she arrived home from the airport with Esteban an hour and a half later.
"Are you insane?"
I snapped instantly awake. There she was standing outside my driver's side window with Esteban sleepily standing by her side just looking at me.
"Huh?... What?... Oh crap. What time is it?"
"10:30. Are you insane?" she asked again.
"Of course not. There's a simple explanation. It's hilarious actually."
She just continued to stare at me as if trying to solve some complex puzzle. I knew at that moment that she would not find my story hilarious.
"I was driving them around and then they started waking up..."
"It doesn't matter." She said. " As long as everyone is still alive... it doesn't matter. Now do you want to come out of there now, or should Esteban and I climb in?"
"We'll come out." I said.
"Thank you very much." She said.
She never asked what happened. She wasn't mad the next day. She just let it go as another unexplained Daddy mystery that would forever go unsolved. I guess at the end of the day, she's right. As long as I kept them alive and breathing... you chalk it up as a win and move on.
