And the Gold goes to...

Sarah is doing her psychiatry rotation these days, so we're staying with the parents in St Cloud in order to allow her to come home in the evenings and see Julia and I. This also means that it's my responsibility to watch the baby during the day and to make sure that she sleeps as much as possible at night. I'm getting pretty good at it.

I think Baby Wrangling should become an Olympic event.

I can see it now: "Sprengeler snuggles down on the top bunk. And they're wheeling in the crib, baby and all. Looks like this one is sleeping soundly - but not for long, don't you worry. . . And there's the signal! The baby wails, loud and clear, and it's up to Sprengeler to make sure the lady on the bottom bunk stays sleeping! He's off the bed in one fluid motion, hits the floor with both feet - just look at that landing, ladies and gentlemen - now he's got the Nuk, and it's back in the baby's mouth! Her head hits the mattress, and she's asleep. Amazing! Did you see that? The clock stands at 3.7 seconds, and not a single movement on the bottom bunk! Let's see what the judges think - 9.7, 9.7, 9.6, 9.8 . . ."

Think about it. They could give out medals for squirting liquid ibuprofen into little mouths, or stuffing protesting babies into sleepers (with 300 snaps) while half asleep, or fishing bits of paper out from between wildly gnashing jaws while avoiding razor-sharp incisors. Points deducted if the baby draws blood. I think I could take the Gold, at least in the "Back to Sleep" event. I need to work on subduing babies with dirty diapers that need to be changed but don't want to (case in point: last night we had a poopy diaper, which became poopy diaper-back-bodysuit-romper-floor through Julia's enthusiastic efforts).