Which I now totally want to try the next time I'm wide awake at 3:00 AM

When you hear piercing shrieks in the middle of the night, you tend to leap out of bed and run towards the shriek-maker to see what the problem might be.

Because maybe something calamitous has happened to your baby. Maybe there's a bug in her bed! Or she's had a ginormous poop! Or something equally terrible!

Or.

Maybe she sat herself up for the first time ever. And cannot figure out what to do next.

I have read about babies trying out new skills in the middle of the night. Apparently it is common.

Jordan, however, did not do this. Or if he did, he did so very quietly. As far as we knew, once he started sleeping through the night, he stuck his thumb in his mouth, his butt in the air, and slept. All night long.

And by the way, he no longer removes his pants when he gets angry. I see this as serious progress.

India, however, is so very unlike her brother. She's figured out how to turn on the very same mobile that her brother enjoyed but never touched. She flips and squirms and is generally just itching to do everything she possibly can and then all the things that she cannot yet.

So I saved her from the dread sitting. She was all, "Oh, hi! Awesome to see you!"

I fully expected a repeat performance an hour later.

When I returned to bed, temporarily wide awake, I started thinking. What if adults did that?

One minute there you'd be, sound asleep, all ensconced in dreams in your cozy bed.

You'd have no idea that your partner had woken up and was trying to figure out how to pass the time before falling back asleep. She'd be thinking and thinking, and then she'd realize that her trainer had showed her this great exercise.

And then you might feel the bed shake a little. Or you might hear a tiny noise. You'd slowly begin surfacing from asleepness as you came to the realization that something was going on in your very own bed.

You'd briefly wonder if you even wanted to know. But of course you'd be curious.

So you'd open your eyes to see your partner, wide awake, practicing one-legged squats or something of the sort.

And really, "The hell?" would be pretty much all you could say, you know?