Cute baby, acute hearing

I've discovered an exhilarating new game the whole family can play: I like to call it "Don't Wake Up Babygirl on the Way to Bed."

I'm almost always the last one in bed. The baby is usually out by 8 p.m., and my wife rarely stays up past 9:00 on weeknights. On the other hand, I seldom turn in before midnight, and I've been known to slink into the sack as late as two in the morning.

The morning-after consequences of these occasional lapses in judgment aren't anything three or four cups of coffee won't fix. But it's the more immediate consequences that I've learned to dread.

We have one of those sound machines in the baby's room. We have it set to emit a whale-music sound. The baby's room is right next to ours, so the whale music is as familiar to me now as the sound of my own heartbeat. There's a timer button that will cut out the sound after an hour or so. Most nights, I hit this button after I've tucked her in. I also leave her door ajar a bit.

Both of these precautions always seem like good ideas at 8 p.m.

But five hours later, as I'm tippy-toeing down the hallway, feeling my way along in the dark, holding my breath and trying to avoid the creaky spots in the floor, cutting my cover noise and leaving her door open seems about as smart as planting landmines under the carpet.

I don't know if the kid's hearing is that good or if my spy routine is that bad, but I know she's heard me a few times. I can tell because she wakes up, squawks and babbles a bit, then drifts off again. But once, a few weeks ago, she stayed up. I ended up having to pluck her out of the crib and take her downstairs for a playtime session that finally ended at 2:40 in the morning.

You'd think I would have learned my lesson from that one. But the time is now ten to midnight, and I'm not feeling at all sleepy yet. Wish me luck.