Never Send a Man to do a Woman's Job

Back in August Tate graduated to sleeping in his crib at night. We haven't used a baby monitor since Reese was tiny because they pick up every last whimper, sigh, etc. which made me sit bolt upright in bed trying to discern if that "whimper" was really an intruder trying to sneak her out of her crib. Alas, after the 14th time I went to check on her one night, we decided to do away with the baby monitor. The nursery is just across the hall from our room, so we can easily hear their cries when they wake up to chow.

As I've written before, we've become quite a bit more relaxed at this Parenting Deal with each child. One thing I'll never give up doing, however, is checking on them while they sleep before I retire for the evening. A few days after Tate began sleeping in his own room, I sent David in there to check on him while we were getting ready for bed, thinking that was an easy task to give him, there's no way he can mess that up.

He popped his head in the nursery quickly, then returned to bed.

"Um.....is he ok?", I asked.

"Yep. He's fine.", he stated casually as he began fluffing his pillow to settle down.

"That was awfully quick. How could you even tell anything by just popping your head in the door?", I probed.

"What do you mean? You told me to check on him. I opened the door...and there he was...still in his crib.", he explained.

"But did you happen to check to see if he was still BREATHING?", I asked as I jumped out of bed and ran across the hall. I creeped over to the side of his crib and peered down. Since my eyes hadn't quited adjusted to the dark yet, I bent closer and put my hand on his little chest. Letting out a huge sigh of relief, I felt the familiar rise and fall of his soft pajamas.

I headed back to bed to an unsuspecting David who had already started to drift off.

"You mean to tell me.....that for the past 4 years since we started having babies, everytime I have sent you in to check on them, all you have been doing is popping your head in and making sure they were still in their crib?!" I asked, horrified.

"Well, yeah. I thought that was checking on them. Making sure they were still in their crib and hadn't escaped." he said, defending himself.

Astonished, I asked, "Just how in the world, do you think a 2 month old baby, who can barely hold up the weight of his own head, is going to miraculously pull himself up over the side of the crib rail and disappear into some deep dark crevice of his nursery? All this time, I have been sending you in there to make sure they still have respirations, and all these years, I have been going to sleep with a false sense of security going on your simple statement of 'They're fine'. "

From now on I am either more direct with my questions for David, "Did you check on Tate? Is he still breathing?" or I just do it myself. (Which, actually, I think was David's plan all along so he could hop into his nice warm cozy bed a little bit quicker).