Caveman

Sometimes, I live with a caveman. Those who know Paul in real life will not believe me. But I tell you, this guy can be moody! That's not when he regresses to a pre-verbal state, though. That only happens on two very special occasions.

First, when he's holding a sleeping baby. The baby has fallen asleep in the car and he's bringing her in. "Hi!" I say, softly. If I'm lucky, I get a slight grunt. Anything more expressive would wake the baby (the baby that has slept easily through home repairs and tornado sirens). And that includes anything that would involve moving the face, like a smile. Later, I might get a "Sorry, I didn't want to wake the baby." You gotta watch out for those 100 watt smiles. They're like alarm clocks.

Second, when he's sleepy. Oh, man, I have never been able to understand this guy and sleep. When he's sleepy, he sleeps. Once, we were at a lock-in at a YMCA, playing spades, and he fell asleep on his cards. Several times he's left a party, presumably to go to the bathroom, and I've found him much later fast asleep on the bed in our room. When he's tired, nothing keeps him awake: not will-power, not responsibilities, not lovin', nothing (and that's about all the detail I'll go into on that point, thankyouverymuch).

And when this guy is sleepy, he's hardly human. This is especially annoying or funny, depending upon how tired I am at the time, given that he's so sweet and considerate most of the rest of the time.

One recent morning, Ellie woke us up early. Waaaaay too early. I woke first, stood up to slide my feet into my shoes, and - 'click.' That would be the bathroom door shutting. Guess - just guess! - what I was planning to do first thing in the morning. Right. So I sighed and sat back down on the bed and waited. And waited. Eventually, I said, "Paul?!"

"Huh? Ungh."

He'd been sleeping in there. OK, well, now I'm going in there and he's taking care of the baby, right? Nah, he's fast asleep across the whole bed when I come out of the bathroom. This later became a big fight (hey, we were tired, OK?) but we all know who was really at fault, right? I mean, where else was I headed first thing in the morning before he cut me off?

Ellie will go weeks without waking in the middle of the night. Then suddenly she'll wake at 4:00 am 4 days in a row. On days when neither of us works the next day, we share these nighttime duties. But just try to talk to him as you're trading off the baby and the rocking chair. I dare ya. "Honey, you look tired. I'll take her for a while and try to nurse her."

"." He hands over the baby and stumbles back to hog the whole bed again.

This whole post would be a lot funnier if I could bring myself to make him sound really bad, but I can't and I can't deny that he's the one who gets up first with Ellie almost every single morning so that I can get a few extra minutes of sleep, since I stay up doing this after he goes to bed. Good husband.