Eyes Wide Shut

Here’s how it happens.  Elliot cries in my arms.  I sing him to sleep.  I hold him for a while, and eventually (after five minutes or several hours) he starts to wake up.   There’s a noise, or something happens and I have to shift positions, and he just opens his eyes.  

Now, this isn’t the waking where he snuffles his little face into my chest with his eyes closed.  That’s an entirely different type of waking up.  That one can be miserable, with him going directly from sleep to crabby with nothing in between. 

No, the type of waking up I’m talking about now is the exact opposite. I’ll be holding him in my arms (well, holding him in one arm, really, with the other arm poised for steadying like second string safety ready to come off the bench), bouncing along to whatever silly tune I’m singing (most recently I got him to sleep with Bruce Springsteen’s classic “Thunder Road”). 

And I’ll look down and his eyes will be open.  

It shocks me.  He’s looking at me so peacefully, it’s like he’s trying to spy on me unawares, and he’s succeeding.  

But I don’t want him to wake up.  So I close my eyes. 

The thin parenting vine upon which my little grape is perched has communicated to me that infants who see their parents sleeping are more likely to go back to sleep.  You’re supposed to close your eyes so they think it’s time to sleep.  

So I close my eyes.  But behind my lids I can’t help it, I see his perfect little face, the adorable blue eyes, the plump cheeks softer than silk, the long lashes flapping innocently, and I want to look at it again.  So I crack my eyes open, and hey guess what the little bugger has taken my advice and closed his own eyes.  So I can look at him with impunity. 

But only for a few seconds.  Because then Elliot cracks his eyes open to see if I’m really asleep.  Okay, I may be projecting.  But I swear, it really does seem like he’s doing what I’m doing --- checking to see if I’m really asleep or just faking. 

So I quickly slam my eyes shut.  Can’t let the little bugger catch me in the act.  

And when I open them again, he’s also in the process of opening his.  Through squinty slits we catch each others’ eyes.  Is that guilt I see in his face?  It’s certainly in mine.  

Eventually, obviously, he just wakes up.  Did I really think I could convince him I was asleep?  After all, I was holding him in my arms, standing upright in a brightly lit living room. He’s 10 weeks old, but he’s not an idiot.