
The next thing I knew, I heard a little voice across the hall calling: "Ahma? Ahma?"
I fumbled for my phone to register just how long I'd overslept and read 7:55.
Crap.
I fumbled my way out of the bedroom, so sleepy I was grabbing the wrong side of the door to find the knob. I think I'd stumbled out of the wrong side of the bed and then somehow got turned upside down and all around. It was like I was in a fun house.
Next I grappled with the nursery door, my fingers slipping on the glass knob until I finally pushed the door open to the sounds of my daughter's multiple crib toys singing/jingling/chirping and whirring. It's basically a disco.
She's a whizz at operating all these musical entertainers and soothers. With her right arm she can reach out and pull down the Baby Einstein Lights n' Music Show like a wizened gambler going for one more shot at the slot machine. I swear she's casually puffing on a cigarette with her left hand and giving me the head nod as if I were a cocktail waitress in a skimpy outfit rather than her mother in underpants.
When her left hand is not casually puffing on imaginary cigarettes, it easily reaches for and pushes the one enormous button that activates the blue light of the Ocean Wonders crib toy. Bubbles gurgle, fish tilt and sway, and music chirps her to a soggy sleep, I guess.
So this morning I stumbled into her whirring/chirping bedroom bathed in a blue glow and fumbled my way into crib. She was sitting up in her sleep bag looking at me rather cautiously. I think she could sense I didn't have my wits about me.
I reached for her and as I did so, she tilted herself forward. My sleepy brain misread her cue as a move towards the Ocean Wonders toy. I thought she was moving away from me and towards her toy for one more push of the magic button before she started her day.
As a courtesy, I pulled my hands away from her armpits so I wouldn't get in the way. Instead of reaching her arms out towards the toy as I expected her to do, she did a complete face plant in plastic screen of the toy.
"I'm so sorry!" I cried and quickly peeled her face off the Ocean Wonders toy where she was already doing the silent intake of breath before the scream.
Poor thing was leaning into me — leaning into me picking her up — not leaning towards the damn toy. It's like I just failed at the game of trust with my one-year-old baby. Now she's definitely going to turn to smoking, gambling and drinking. Those things never let her down. Unlike her pants-less mother.
Or is that pants-less wonder?