You have to admit, we do some goofy things in the name of motherhood: singing in public so our kids will smile for a photographer, tasting baby food, filming the first day of school as if it were a documentary, waiting in line for the latest (and expensive) must-have toys. But without question, the silliest thing we do as mothers is check on our kids when they're sleeping.
Ignoring my husband as he shakes his head, I creep into my daughter's room each night and inevitably end up losing the Don't-Wake-The-Baby game. I've done a lot of research, and it simply doesn't matter how quietly or slowly I approach the crib, Abbey stirs. Sometimes, if I freeze, I get lucky and she mumbles and rolls back over with her blankie. More often than not, however, I'm trapped like a soldier over enemy lines and I have to duck and cover.
Don't tell me you've never done it, because I won't believe you. What mother of a newborn baby hasn't dropped to the nursery floor, curled up into a ball and held her breath when Baby caught her searching for a midnight kiss?
It happened to me just the other night. With a cheek full of rough carpet and a cramp in my leg, all I could think was, "This is ridiculous! I'm a grown woman!" Nonetheless, I couldn't bring myself to move or even breathe. I felt like those characters in the movie "Jurassic Park" who insisted their pal Tyrannosaurus Rex wouldn't be able to see them as long as they stayed perfectly still.
As Abbey stood at the end of her bed, softly crying, "Maw-Mee, Maw-Mee," I knew I had two choices. I could either give myself up and comfort her or wait her out and hope that she'd go back to sleep. Call me ambitious (or crazy), but I chose the latter.
While I waited for my daughter to lie back down and then for her breathing to become slow and even again, I did some thinking and came up with a theory. I'm convinced the whole there's-a-monster-under-my-bed phase kids go through is the direct result of the first cave baby noticing a rock that looked suspiciously like his mommy next to his bed of straw.
Think about it: When the poor, little thing called out and no one answered, what other conclusion could he draw except that there was some kind of scary blob of a creature stalking babies at night?
Of course, after Abbey settled down, I had another problem: how to get out of the room without making too much noise and starting the process all over again. Careful to avoid the creaking floorboards, I made it to the door.
Next dilemma: Do I open the door, crawl out on all fours, and hope that the hall light doesn't disturb the baby, or do I try the stand-open-and-close-the-door-swiftly approach? Again, I chose the latter. Afterwards, I waited a moment or two with my hand resting on the doorknob, listening.
Success.
I let the knob click gently into place and headed for my boys' bedroom. My middle child, Sam, woke up when I went to cover him and asked me to lie next to him. I didn't mind. Why should I? After all these years, I've got untangling myself from my sleeping four-year-old's arms and legs, rolling off the bottom bunk, and making it out of the room down to a science. It's his brother's top bunk bed I haven't been able to figure out yet.
Carmella Van Vleet is a freelance author in Lewis Center, Ohio. "Duck and Cover" originally appeared in "Welcome Home" in September 1999 (It is also included in Family and Home Network's recently published anthology, "Blow-drying the Frog and Other Parenting Adventures.")