Jinx

Andy, for all his resistance to woo-woo crap and embrace of left-brain rationalism, is a big believer in the jinx. Me, not so much. Any kind of luck that needs to be maintained by keeping mum is not the kind of luck I'm ever going to have as a bosom buddy.

But about the kid's sleep, I can't help it. If he sleeps through one of his two usual overnight feedings, I hesitate even to mention it to Andy, lest I wake the Jinx Powers from their own light slumber. I write blog entries when he's sleeping poorly, mention my distress on forums, but when things are going well, OH GOD SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

When he still slept in the bassinet in our room (and I use the term "slept" very loosely), just the tiny click of my putting my glasses down on my bedside table would sometimes wake him. I was convinced it was a kind of jinx. I wasn't really attempting to sleep unless I took my glasses off. If my glasses were on, why, I was in a state of catlike readiness, and wouldn't be at all bothered if the baby started wailing again and required another forty minutes of nursing. It probably wasn't even the sound -- it was probably a coincidence, two nights in a row when he happened to wake within ten seconds of my setting the glasses down.

And yet here I am, nearly four months after moving the boy into his own room, as much time in his own room as in ours now, and I can't help but put my glasses down gingerly, wincing if they happen to click.