It’s amazing how our bedtime ritual can turn Mr. Spaz (a.k.a. Sammy) into sleepy baby in 15 minutes. Most nights it works like a charm, and he’ll be out cold for precisely 8 hours.

Other nights, sigh, he’ll wake up in the middle of the night, usually 20 minutes after I’ve fallen asleep. Then, it’s usually check the diaper, schlep him downstairs, nurse him on the recliner, and hope that we can both fall asleep again. If I’m really lucky, he’ll fall asleep enough that I can put him in the pack & play and I can sleep the rest of the night on the couch. As if that kind of arrangement were lucky.