Week Seven: The Big Sleep

Cass is a baby who knows what he wants. And clearly he did not want to leave the party at Campus Martius, throwing a temper tantrum in his stroller the very second we pointed the stroller toward home. Who could blame him? There was a free outdoor afro-beat concert and gads of onlookers to fawn over him. Our little socialite soaked up every minute. He danced, cooed, laughed hysterically at a bald man, and got his belly rubbed by a precarious, gregarious two-year old named Kate. He even got his first semi-public feeding. I ducked behind a massive advertising banner, sat on a cement stoop, covered my upper torso region and his entire body with a blankie. It was traumatizing, certainly, but once it was over, I couldn't help feeling a surge of self-righteousness for saving him from the stench and germs of a port-o-potty--a mother's punishment for modesty.

But even conquering the conundrum of the public feed doesn’t top what happened later that night: Cass had a sleep marathon. He slept seven hours. Straight. This is his single greatest achievement since he took his first breath (besides peeing on the mean nurse from the pediatrician's office four times in the same visit).