Midnight

It's 12:03am, technically, and I wonder why I am not in bed. I just got done putting my almost six week-old son to bed after he had been awake for literally twelve hours (something very unusual for a newborn). He just seemed to be craving attention and pampering. That is not a bad desire by any means, especially for one so utterly dependent upon his parents. However, today he just seemed to be needy beyond belief. My poor wife passed out on the couch a couple hours ago, and I basically spent the last two hours on my feet holding him and trying to woo him to sleep. He fights sleep with all the strength he has in his little body, though I am sure he finds sleep quite the restful repose from his busy day's activities.

Usually by this time of the night I am exhausted (if not in bed already). However, I felt inspired to start writing. Maybe it is because my normal inhibitions begin to fade into dreamland as I make my final approach to sleep. My wife and I are each taking a full load of classes this semester, I am working around 40 hours a week and waking up at 4:30am to do so, and she works part-time teaching English to the foreign missionaries at the MTC. We are now trying to juggle this infant while carrying out all other responsibilities. However, he is the greatest responsibility we have outside of our own conjugal commitments.

He has really put up a fight in classes this week, so we are trying to find someone to watch him during the day. Some wonder why we decided (of our own free will and choice) to have a child at this point in our lives. I sometimes wonder that myself, though I remember very clearly the fateful direction the Lord gave both of us at the same time. We knew that that desire was right and proper at that very moment. With this new "bundle of joy" in our arms comes a slew of responsibilities and obligations. The stress sometimes makes us want to scream in desperation, yet when my wife and I see our son smile and hear his rudimentary attempts at oral communication, all frustration, anger, desperation, and isolation all seem to be whisked away as the "hoar frost before the morning sun." One could term it "a contagion of contentment," yet contentment does not do it justice. What for him is physical and emotional contentment becomes pure love for me. It always touches me when his eyes light up, his toothless mouth gapes open in a smile, and he emits a joyful coo approaching laughter to me, his father.

I could continue at length, and perhaps if it were not so late I would go on. However, there is a time and a place for everything, and my place is now at my wife's side and near my child in the other room.