Punishment

At around 11:00 last night, Lyla's coughing got so bad that I decided to intervene. I entered the nursery with a bottle, but I should have immediately left: she was sleep-coughing. "Never wake a sleeping baby" bounced around the caverns of my brain, but I ignored it.

She chugged the bottle. Then she started coughing again and spewed it all over both of us. My bare chest glistened with formula and bile. "Seriously?" I said to her.

"Ba ba ba," she replied, now soaked and sour-smelling.

I opened our bedroom door to see if Julie was awake to assist with a bath, but she was battling a bug of her own and in a NyQuil coma. She actually did stir long enough to say, "I am sleeping, glurble nurble," not that she would remember saying it in the morning.

One unassisted bath later, I put Lyla to bed again, taking note that she was coughing just as much as before. My involvement accomplished nothing but getting us both barfed on, which was an apt punishment for waking a sleeping baby.