My Dear John Letter

[masalachica]

Before everybody starts freaking out about my "Dear John" letter to my husband, please know that this is not a standard Dear John letter, the term which is used to indicate a "sayonara" letter from a woman to her spouse or loved one.

Again, this is NOT that kind of Dear John letter.

I start my letters with Dear and his name is John. Enough said.

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Dear John,

The other night when we were sleeping, I was kind of fading in and out of consciousness. You may not realize it but because both of the baby monitors - the video one we use for Nico and the regular monitor we have for Shaila, are on my side of the bed, I often have trouble sleeping because I get distracted by every sound or movement.

Those stupid monitors drive me freaking crazy.

As a result of this, I sometimes turn the volume very low on these ridiculous inventions which are quite effective at driving parents everywhere to insanity, so that I can try to get some semblance of sleep. However, I do realize that this does bother you, Husband. You are always nervous that we will miss something very, very important if we miss one sound, or if they actually cry for longer than 20 seconds.

I can almost feel you sweating right now that I would even suggest that those contraptions of torture may need a slight break in our house. What if our children cry? And oh, look they are crying! If I didn't hear it, what would happen then?

Well, let me tell you what would happen. They would most likely pass out and fall asleep. No bruises. No cuts. It would just happen. But you like to get your money's worth. I know what you are thinking. Well, we bought them so now we must use them. Otherwise, these sound investments, which are turning into the bane of my existence, would be for naught.

And trust me. Just because we, I mean, I run to their room within a millisecond of hearing the cry, that does not mean we will somehow prevent them from needing therapy or deeply resenting us as teenagers later on. In fact, given that these children are in fact my children, I would say that regardless of what we might do now, this is highly likely.

I'm just saying.

Here is the tough part that I am, um, struggling with. Over the past few months, I have lamented the loss of having just one freaking REM cycle uninterrupted, and have blamed it on my children quite openly. I figured, hey, the therapy and resentment are a given, so let me just milk this thing and have a nice pity party.

Last night though, I realized that the culprit is not our little baby boy OR our rambunctious toddler. At the crux of all this, all the sleep and REM cycles I can NEVER GET BACK, I now realize that it is You -YOU, Husband, who is the real culprit here.

For you see, last night, when I was kind of in and out of consciousness, something really funny happened. Funny as in ODD, maybe not funny as in ha ha, if you know what I mean. But we have different senses of humor so for all I know you are rolling on the floor laughing right now.

Nico started crying. Yes I could hear it. NO, I did NOT catapult myself from the bed to get him because sometimes his crying stops on its own.

But YOU must have been concerned honey. Because while I pretended to sleep, I saw you get out of bed, walk over to MY side of the bed, where you casually TURNED UP the volume on Nico's monitor. And confirmed that he was in fact, crying.

This is where the really "odd," (as in messed up "odd") up part happens. See, at this point, you turned around and tip-toed back to your side of the bed and got back under the covers. I wondered what you were up to but I wanted to see how this would all play out. (Trust me, I was on the edge of my seat). You then leaned over me to look at the monitor and tapped me as if you had just woken up.

"Hey Honey, it looks like Nico is crying," rubbing the sleep out of your eyes (IMPOSTOR) and pointing at the monitor.

I was too dumbfounded to do anything about it except climb out of bed, soothe my crying son and collect my thoughts around what I had just seen. You are much, much sneakier than I thought, John. I have obviously underestimated your wiles throughout the 7 years we have been together.

Now I don't know what game you are playing at, Husband. You are a worthwhile opponent, I will concede that. But for now? I am on to you. Next time you tap me to tell me about our crying baby, I am going to go kung-fu on you so you better be ready.

Here is what is gonna go down.

1) Save yourself the trip to my side of the bed.
2) Go to our son's room.
3) Address the issue.
4) Tell me about it in the morning.

Now, you know I love you. But I don't love you the same all 24 hours of the day. You are way cuter and more endearing to me in the evening after we come home from work and even better after payday. You are like a perfect 10 those days. But at 4:30 in the morning, you are not as cute and I don't think you are sweet. You go from being Peirce Brosnan to Joe Pesci in less than 12 hours. I can't explain the phenomenon. So please, just use your judgment with these kinds of things.

While I liked Goodfellas, I can't be blamed for offing Joe Pesci if I found him in my bed at 4:30 AM. Especially if he proved to be as sneaky as you were, John.

Consider yourself warned. Don't do it again.

Love you!
Kiran