Great Circle

My one year old son Adam is still not sleeping through the night. Jack, who turned five recently, conversely has been a champion sleeper from the beginning; born with the innate near-feline ability to sleep for 12 hours stretches and through disturbances with decibel levels that would not only startle most people awake but render them at least temporarily deaf: 

• 120 dB – Approaching 747’s that mistake our porch light for a landing beacon and trace an unfortunate flight path over our property
•  90dB – Our bedside clock radio/blender since there’s nothing quite like waking up to adult contemporary and fruit smoothies
• 70 dB – The constant car door slamming from our next door neighbors who we can only determine are training for the ESPN World Series of Chinese Fire Drills Regional Qualifiers

It may be that Google Maps plots the directions to the Sturgis Bike Rally (from any starting point in the country) to follow a route directly past our house or that his room is just simply closer to the front of the house resulting in more road noise, but Adam still wakes up at least twice a night. He is the antithesis of Jack; the crying counterweight screaming in the night balancing the scales of parental fairness. 

Our fatigued desperation has compelled us to unprecedentedly solicit the advice of other parents and thereafter attempt the culled methods, tips, old wives tales, homeopathic remedies and techniques guaranteed to get your child to sleep though the night or your money back. 

Included among the failed attempts are the cry it out method, the co-sleeping method, drinking chamomile tea before nursing, a motion activated musical mobile, sleep training, an inverted facelock sleeper hold, hypnotism, a pre-bedtime bath, nitrous oxide hits, repeating the phrase through gritted teeth “Why won’t you sleep Baby?”, allowing a giant glowing butterfly to flap into the room through an open window then hover ominously over the crib, reruns of Jay Leno’s opening monologue, C-Span…none of them worked. 

The closest thing we’ve found to a solution to our late night woes was when we put the Homedics White Noise Sound Maker in his room to drown out the din of the world by surrounding him in a computerized cocoon of artificially reproduced nature sounds. This particular White Noise Maker has six self-described soothing, natural sounds that help calm a baby to sleep. We’ve tried all six of the sounds with Adam with varying degrees of success. In order of least successful to most successful are: 

6. The Heartbeat –Meant to simulate a mother’s natural heartbeat it is closer to a meddlesome downstairs neighbor banging a broom handle on the ceiling because the Homedic sound engineers were cranking Freebird at 2:00 in the morning again. 

5. Rainforest –Sneak into a Petsmart after hours, mic every animal, kick the cages, and press record. 

4. Waterfall – If you’ve ever stuck your head out the window of moving car, have gone skydiving or simulated hurricane conditions in a wind tunnel then you’ve heard the Homedic Waterfall. 

3. Summer Night – In this Monroe Midsummer Night’s Dream the crickets are really just squeaky brake pads. 

2. Rainfall – Put a pound of Oscar Meyer Bacon in a cast-iron skillet, put the skillet on the stove, turn the burner on high, listen carefully; fat rendered waterfall. 

1. Ocean – If seagulls owned espresso machines or were at least allowed into Starbucks you too could enjoy the dulcet ebb and flow that Ventis young Adam to sleep every night. 

So thanks to a glorified sound effects machine we’re sleeping again. Even if it’s only for 4 hour stretches we’re sleeping again and to that end it matters very little to me that Adam has developed a fondness for seabirds, an addiction to caffeine, an insatiable hunger for breakfast meat and an unnatural affinity for southern rock anthems. 

It matters very little ’cause I’m as free as a bird now, and this bird you’ll never change. Lord knows, I can’t change. Lord help me, I can’t change. 

Alright Mrs. Esposito! Alright! Stop Banging! I’ll turn it down! 

*** 

“Bill Gathen is the father of two boys, one who refuses to sleep and one who refuses to eat, and the husband of one woman who for some reason has permanently attached herself to him “like the thing from Alien” as she puts it. They share their house in upstate New York with an 11 year old, bowlegged, overweight, chain smoking, narcoleptic housecat and an imaginary leprechaun named King Brian.

Bill’s oldest son, Jack, is only 5 years old but is already finger-painting at a 10th grade level. Bill is also terrified to pick up his one year old son Adam because he treats neck skin like a Taffy Pull and kneads upper lips like pizza dough. He writes about all this and more at his blog Make it a Double (http://bgathen.wordpress.com). He’s got a heavy pour and you can’t beat the prices.” 

*** Thanks Bill!  

And so begins November’s Carnival of War! We’ll post the next installment in two days’ time…