Saturday Stories, Part II

Ellie was not a “good” baby. Oh, she was insanely cute, but she was reminiscent of that nursery rhyme character, Curl-Gurl:

There was a little girl who had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead;

When she was good, she was very, very good,

And when she was bad she was horrid.

Except she didn’t actually have hair until she was 2 years old. Otherwise, though I loved her with every fiber of my being, she WAS pretty horrid as a baby.

(I am certain that someone will read this entry and sigh with indignation, as they judge my mothering as unfit. Oh well…)

Ellie cried A.LOT. And she slept VERY.LITTLE. It was a terrible combo. So terrible, in fact, that my Stay-At-Home-Mom job lasted all of four months. I went back to work and just about kissed Carlin, our fantabulous nanny, every time she walked into the door. She was so wonderful with Ellie and *I* was a much better mother after “escaping” to the adult world for a few hours each day.

The problem was that Carlin wasn’t around at night. She wasn’t there to take over at 3am, when Ellie had been crying for an hour and no sign of tiring was in sight.

Richard and I were REALLY tired. REALLY, REALLY tired.

So, one morning, after an extremely tough night, I came up with a brilliant idea: Let’s call in sick to work (because lack of sleep can definitely count as sickness), and when Carlin comes to the house, let’s go to a hotel room and sleep.

Yes, SLEEP.

Richard was game. So, I got on the phone. I called the Comfort Inn near our house, thinking it might be the cheapest local option. The front desk clerk answered and I said,

“Do you rent rooms for half-days? We only need a room for a few hours this morning.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Eventually, the clerk replied with,

“Um, I’ll have to check on that. Cuz, we’re not really THAT kind of hotel, you know.”

Not only will sleep deprivation make you crazy and sick, it will also make you clueless. It wasn’t till after my glorious nap that I realized what he meant.

I guess his manager didn’t care how they made a buck that day, because we were allowed to rent a room for the morning at half the price. Richard checked us into the room and I remember the clerk looking down at our hands; at our ring fingers. OF COURSE, it just so happened that I wasn’t wearing my rings that day. My fingers were still afflicted with the “pregnancy puff” , and my rings were too small.

Once I put it all together, I realized that the front desk clerk (and most likely all the staff who heard his story) thought that I was a hooker-mistress, and we were renting the room for a few hours on our illicit rendezvous.

Tee hee.

‘Course, the clerk would have been really shocked had he walked into our room at any point during the morning. He would have seen two people, each on their own bed, fully clothed, sound asleep. I’m not even sure I got my shoes off before hitting the pillow.

It was a great nap. And I’m sure we gave a few Comfort Inn employees some good, juicy office-gossip laughs. So, win-win.

And, just for the record, Ellie grew out of her horridness a few months later and was replaced with straight-haired sweetness.

The End