These two things are entirely unrelated. A round of Dad Negligence (in truth, actually more like Husband negligence) and a bit of the ol’ uplifting “So cool being a dad!”
Dad (Husband) Negligence
Last night Cole pulled one of his 2am wakeups. I slept a genuine sleep up to the point that he sat upright-ish and started to talk to whoever would listen. This kid just doesn’t like sleep. “Baw baw dit dit yamma rid did oh,” he told the world. “Cole,” said Alex, a bit exasperated. “Ha! Rimmum mmmmm!”
At about that point in time, I hid my head under some covers and squeezed my eyes shut. And for one of the only times ever (the only one I’ll cop to, at least) I let Alex cart him away without popping up and asking if I could contribute. I did feel bad, and as I contemplated getting out of bed to help, I promptly fell asleep.
She didn’t have an easy time of it, either. About 2 hours of him being awake… and when it was finally bedtime, Moby did some barfing in the hall that caused him to wake up again, requiring extra bouncing AFTER some cleanup. This part, I genuinely slept through.
Sorry, baby! I’ll make it up to you somehow. 
Dad Reward
Not a physical reward, this one. Alex Instant Messenger’d me at about 5:00pm while I was still at work (I usually work until 5:45 or 6:00) to tell me this: “Your son is a cutie.” I loved the phrasing of it… usually we say “our son”, but it struck me as particularly nice today to be reminded of the singular connection between Cole and I (which of course exists in parallel with Cole and his mother and also the family as a whole). Asked her why in particular, and she told me that after getting his diaper changed (correlation?) he searched around upstairs for me, saying “Dad dadda dad daddy dad” while doing so.
Of course, I couldn’t wait to see my little guy after hearing that, so I left work a bit early.
He really is a cute little scamp.
