From Leah, with love.

I have a subscription to "Parenting" magazine.  This is partially because I felt it would be helpful but mostly because I was asked if I wanted to subscribe and get a free issue and I couldn't say no, and then I forgot to cancel it before I had to start paying for it.

But I digress.

I have a subscription to "Parenting" magazine.  I sometimes read it and sometimes forget that I have it, depending on the day.  It happened that I actually had time to read the November issue on the day it arrived (otherwise known as the day I sorted through the mail pile and realized it had been delivered at some time within the past week or so.)  I do enjoy it, do find the articles to be (usually) helpful and (sometimes) interesting, and I especially like that most of the articles are very short.  Clearly this was written for parents who don't have time to sit and read a magazine for an hour.  Well done, "Parenting."

There was an article in the November issue written by a dad about middle-of-the-night wake-ups.  "This will be interesting," I thought.  "I will read this, and I will learn something."  Because I do, at least once a night, have a visit with my daughter who has woken from her slumber and is demanding food or attention or a warm body to snuggle with.

The article, titled "Our Finest Hour" (Page 58 of the November 2012 issue, for those of you who want to follow along in your books at home), proposes that a baby crying at night is "like an opera - it starts out quiet, and then crescendos into a dramatic aria."  And this particular father gave it some thought and decided that when he only woke when the child reached the aria, he was missing the best part.  And so he started getting up early, before the child's predictable cry, in order to hear the start of the opera.

This melted my heart.  I'm reasonably certain I "awwww"'d out loud.

The guy gets up on purpose at 4:15 every goddamn morning to hear is kid wake up, and then he feeds his son, and then, he says, "We just hang."

I would not be outdone by some hipster dad.  I COULD HANG, TOO, DAMMIT.  So Leah and I had a middle-of-the-night "hang" session one night because she woke up, had her midnight snack, and decided she was not, in fact, interested in going back to sleep at all, thank you, and further, she had some things she wanted to talk about.  I thought, "I'll try that 'hang' thing.  It'll be fun."

Yeah, no.  I mean, it was, for about 20 minutes.  But our "hang" session was three hours long.  It included two diaper changes and two failed attempts on my part to put an end to the party before she finally consented.  The next day, I required three cups of coffee (in comparison to my usual 1) just to get through my work day.

"4:30 a.m. is a gift," this article concludes.

I'd like a refund, por favor.