Cribbage….

For some reason, the corner of the baby’s crib sheet has been creeping away from the edge of the mattress at night. I have no idea if she is peeling back the sheet to check out the pattern on the mattress beneath or if it’s been washed so many times, the sheet to mattress ratio is no longer going to allow for full coverage. Perhaps she overheard me talking about Martha Stewart’s perfect way to fold a fitted sheet and like most of us, realized she was in way over her head and quit after picking up the first corner.

I fear things like bed bugs, dust, plastic mattress patterns on baby’s faces and if the baby falls asleep with the sheet corner pulled off I can’t rest until I know its back in place. What if her lips become suctioned to the plastic and she suffocates? What if the small incision through the plastic on the top of the mattress becomes exposed and she innocently glides her wee fingers over it giving herself the worst mattress cut in the history of mattress cuts? What if the sheet pulls off entirely, springs into fitted sheet form, encasing her like a caterpillar in a cocoon?

In order to right this terrible wrong, I must plan my attack and proceed with focus, precision and patience. This exercise involves a series of Mission Impossible style manoeuvres.

I begin by turning off any hallway, bathroom, back-lighting that might influence her REM sleep and jolt her awake from the slightest lighting change when I open the door.

I turn the doorknob over a thirty second time frame ensuring no sound could emanate from the cranking knob and if she did for some reason glance at the knob even just for a second while rolling over onto the exposed mattress, she wouldn’t be able to conclude the knob was in motion, perhaps the slow, hypnotic, circular movement would lull her into an even deeper slumber and she would quickly close her eyes and fall back to sleep.

Door is open, project crib sheet is in full view I walk towards it in a zig zag pattern so as not to disturb the movement of the air being blown by the fan whose purpose is to provide a constant hum drowning out background noise from giggling older sisters as they hork toothpaste all over the bathroom sink and counter and nowhere near the drain.

If my leg brushes against the floor heater and knocks it even an inch from the base, the fan belts out a blaring alarm louder than a jet engine and not only would the baby wake up screaming, my heart would likely stop and there would be a puddle of a do-gooder Mommy with a claw pick-up tool in one hand and sniffing salts in the other.  

I kneel in front of the crib and my knees crack like someone hammering a nail reminding me how old I’m getting. Deep breath, serenity now, she’s still sleeping.

I begin to shimmy, slide, pull and gather enough elastic to just barely reach the corner but need a bit more material in order to bring the sheet over the edge if there’s any chance at gripping. This will require me to shift some blankets, a pillow pet and a baby’s sleeping body.

There are days when this baby sleeps so soundly you could change her diaper, put her in different pj’s, bathe her, feed her a four course dinner and she would remain asleep. Others, the flicking of the hallway light switch to “off” for the first step in this exercise has her screaming to be freed from the confines of her crib. The risk is too great. I’m going to have to continue slowly pulling sheet while pushing the mattress to meet it until it finally springs into place.

The baby hovers her head slightly above the mattress. Her eyes aren’t open but her brows appear to be furled. This semi-conscious reaction indicates she knows someone is in her room, that they are up to something and if there’s any more shimmying of sheets she’ll have no choice but to commence wailing.

As I sit here in a huddled ball, on the floor of the baby’s room, cradling my legs, head down so I look more like a piece of furniture and less like an intruder, I’m really feeling a lot like the doorknob I spent the better part of a minute turning to open.

I always get told by parents whose kids are older than mine that they miss the baby stage and wish they could be there again. I bet they’d like to see a picture of my ball impersonation.

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