Where's Mommy?

Baby generally goes to bed with her best friend and food source, leaving me to write about the day’s highlights. Tonight, though, she didn’t fall asleep even after prolonged efforts on mommy’s part, and daddy was given a chance to get her to fall asleep for the night. I got baby to take a bottle, rocked her in my arms, and then heard the explosions. For the first time, a neighborhood association across the river was sending up fireworks for the holiday. Pretty cool – we could see them through our living room windows just a quarter mile away – but not exactly a recipe for dad getting baby down for the first time. I took her upstairs to the family bed, cranked up the air conditioning from low to high to heighten the white noise and tried to get baby to fall asleep on my chest. When that failed, I tried to get her to fall asleep beside me. When that failed, too, I tried to get her to fall asleep in the middle of the bed without my touching her at all. No such luck. Eventually, the fireworks stopped, and baby nearly settled in for a long summer’s nap, but first she had one question: Where’s mommy? She craned her neck around, got up on her knees, and I gave up. It was my first effort, and I imagine I’ll succeed by and by.