Go figure that I would have trouble sleeping now that Madeline is starting to reliably sleep through the night. Part of the problem is this darkness that comes in the fall. It isn’t even the shortest day of the year yet but even last night I was wandering around in the dark to exchange the movies and to pick up our Indian food at Rani. It was only about six thirty. Sarah is one of the people who can’t wait for daylight savings time so that she will see light when she gets rolling to work at 7AM but as soon as that happens it will be dark at about 5:30 or even 5:00. But I can’t exactly make a rational claim that I am unable to sleep properly due to increases in the length of night. In theory it ought to help. I normally would be reading my Tom Wolf book now but I stumbled around the condo for a few minutes trying to hunt it down in the dark without any luck. With three rooms and two occupied by sleeping people it left me with one room that was searchable with light and even then I had to remain quiet.

Annabelle is awake with me at 4:30 AM. She doesn’t appear to sleep until nobody is looking. As a nocturnal creature she is quite happy to have company. Unfortunately her idea of fun is to turn my world into a low budget haunted house by popping out of corners to bite or paw at me then return into the darkness. Annabelle is a kitten still which has been a challenge with Madeline because the cat has far too much nervous energy to expend. Today I pushed Annabelle off of the chair when the food came to keep her from riding her snout through the Chicken Tikka-Masala and afterwards for the next twenty minutes she had that Lou Ferigno/Incredible Hulk rage look about her. She was pissed off. So then we tried to eat dinner and let Madeline wander in the living room to do fun things like change the DVD. On Wednesday we were watching American Dad and Madeline managed to switch the DVD player to a cheesy CD starting with The Wheels on The Bus prompting a 30 minute sing and dance-along. Last night I watched the angry cat with fur bristling wait and hunt for Madeline until finally she pounced from behind scaring Madeline into the cry that led her into Sarah’s arms for the sleep inducing nursing.

I had thought up until recently that I was chump-change in Madeline’s eyes relative to Sarah. Since Sarah has the whole nursing thing working in her favor, spends a little more time with Madeline, and is a mother I thought that Madeline might even get annoyed when Sarah left me alone with her. But the past two times the baby sitters came (Phoebe on Tuesday and Julia yesterday, Madeline started crying as soon as she saw the babysitter and clung to my leg to show that she was very comfortable with me. So I sat in the rocking chair with her on my lap and she calmed down. On Tuesday we all walked to Brueggers and I parted after my morning bagel. Thursday I co-watched the Vincent Van Goat video with Julia on the couch slipping out at a choice funny moment when the cactuses were dancing. The important thing to note here is that Madeline seems to put me fairly high on the hierarchy of people that she is comforted by. I must admit a certain pleasure in being more attractive as a caretaker than the babysitter. I’m loved?

I feel a nasty cold coming on with a sore throat congested sinus and light headedness. It’s raining outside and according to some guy who planned a memorial golf tournament tomorrow it will rain all day on Friday. I don’t know what a memorial golf tournament is but I’m assuming it memorializes someone who died. Plenty of people probably say to their friends – “If I die why don’t you get 16 people together and figure out who is the best golfer in my name”. Personally I would hope to have enough friends and family to have a memorial capture the flag tournament. I’m not talking one quick game but a round robbin 10 team 20 person per team tournament with each team taking a name that relates to my life – like the ChannelWave team or the Improv team. I should sleep or replace fluids or something. I hope my cold doesn’t last too long. It probably won’t kill me.