Last night was one of those nights. I put Cale to bed after his bath, like usual. He went to sleep easily, with little fussing. It seemed like a perfect night. But, then around 11:00 he began to cry and continued off and on until 2:30. I would finally get him to calm down, put him into his crib, and sleepily climb back into bed. Just when I would begin to fall into a deep sleep, I would hear the dreaded sound that most parents of little ones deeply fear in the middle of the night. Baby cries. Loud, piercing, persistent. Oh so persistent. Sometimes I try to convince myself that I'm just dreaming or that maybe the sound I heard was actually a dog howling outside. But, as I lay there trying to make it go away, the sound just grew louder. So, since I had already gotten up once to give Cale some milk, I decided that I was going to let him cry this one out. *Snort* Yeah. I usually last about 10 minutes before I begin to go insane and decide that getting myself out of bed again, will be much less painful than listening to the cries. What is it about baby cries that can make your skin crawl and your pulse race? Why is it that 5 minutes normally passes so quickly, but in baby-screaming time 5 minutes feels like an eternity of torture? Babies, although quite small in stature, are so incredibly powerful over adults.

After repeating this 'asleep again, awake again' process about 4 times last night, I finally did let the poor guy cry awhile. It probably took about 30 minutes of off and on crying, but by about 2:30 Cale was finally asleep. Who knows what caused the outburst. Babies are such a mystery. Talk about variety. Cale loves to keep us guessing. Just when we think he's finally consistently sleeping through the night, he'll actually beat his record of wakeups-in-a-night. I think maybe it's a game with him. He probably makes bets with the other babies in the nursery. I bet you ten Cheerios and a sippy cup of juice that I can get my parents out of bed five times tonight. Sneaky little guy almost always wins. But, last night, in the end, I won. Well, now that I think of it, I was just finally going to sleep at 2:30 AM...so did I really win?