BY CATHY C. HALL

I'm not sure about the rest of the United States, but here in the South, parents are generally adverse to what we call "being ugly." Being ugly can be anything from a dirty look to a full-out, hair-pulling, "Your Momma" contest. But just because we don't like to be ugly doesn't mean we won't. Especially if we can invoke the "last child" rule.

The "last child" rule, for those of you who are not Southerners, goes something like this: A parent is allowed to "get ugly" with a teacher, coach, or other authority figure concerning said child, if, and only if, said child is the last child in the line of siblings.

Allow me to demonstrate said rule using the common t-ball experience. Let's say that you are sitting in the stands, watching your firstborn child swinging the bat. And what do your parental eyes behold? Junior (or Juniorette), for the 87th time, at the very end of the batting order!

What you're itching to do is order up an ugly bat for that coach, if you catch my drift. But you don't, my friends. Because that coach has six kids; he'll be wearing that stupid t-ball coach hat for the next six years. And you have second-born kid playing t-ball next spring.

Time passes. Second-born kid is standing around, scratching himself, at the end of the batting order for the 87th time. But second-born kid is the "last child" to play t-ball. Oh, happy days!

Now the time is ripe to pitch that ugly fit! You've entered the No Repercussions Zone! And don't forget: you've been waiting around to settle firstborn's wrongs, too.  So, you can see how totally awesome the "last child" rule is.

Which brings us to the Preschool Teacher From Hell. And my "last child" who would be in that preschool.

Trouble started in the very beginning of the year when my 4-year-old (we'll call him "Joey" 'cause that's his name) came home from school with lots and lots of worksheets.

Hmmmm. Where were all those crazy-glued pipe cleaners on pumpkins? Or windsocks trailing half-eaten crepe streamers? Or paper plates stuck together with little beans falling out? I didn't complain, mind you. Joey was gone for a few hours, and he loved those swell playgrounds! Still, I wondered how Joey was going to learn anything from worksheets. Because Joey was not a worksheet kind of kid.

Joey was more of a "run around dressed like a pirate/caveman/Native American" kind of kid. I didn't blame the tot for haphazardly filling in the worksheets. Heck, he didn't have time for that foolishness; he was kinda busy with his raggedy loincloths and magic marker tats.

Preschool Teacher From Hell, however, had issues with Joey's creative learning style. And it all came to an ugly head at the end of the year when she called me on the phone for our "conference."

"Joey," said PTFH, "is not ready for kindergarten." Which is preschool talk for: your kid has just flunked the 4-year-old class.

"Oh," I said, politely (because, as I mentioned, I'm Southern). “I'm sure Joey will be fine."

"Joey doesn't know his colors," she said.

The thing is, I'd spent about 112 bucks on washable magic markers in the last year. I had a permanent indentation in my Tall Man finger from drawing caveman symbols (a lot of moons, tree squiggles, and mountains, if you're wondering) on Joey's arms and face. So, I was pretty sure the kid knew at least eight colors.

"Not to worry. Joey knows his colors." Notice I'm still being polite, magnanimously overlooking this woman's inability to see Joey as a wunderkind, because I'm very Southern.

"Joey NEVER colors in the lines!" She countered. "He just scribble-scrabbles all over the pages."

Lady, nobody talks about my kid's coloring like that. Nobody.

"Look," I spat. Politeness was now gone with the wind. "The last time I checked, coloring in the lines was not a prerequisite for entering kindergarten. And another thing..."

I was forced to invoke the "last child" rule. And I'm not going to lie. It was an epically ugly five minutes, ending with the classic phone slam.

Joey, by the way, ended up winning a totally awesome state award for a story he wrote the next year, in kindergarten. And I wanted to send a little note to the Preschool Teacher From Hell. Something like "Cathy Hall would like to announce that her brilliant son, Joey, won a rather prestigious writing award. His kindergarten teacher had no trouble at all reading his scribble-scrabble. And he colored a very nice, mostly moons, tree squiggles and mountain picture, to go along with it."

But I'm a Southerner, you know, and that would just be ugly.

Cathy C. Hall is a mother of three, writer, and humor columnist from the metro Atlanta area (which sounds way better than the suburbs). Her site: www.cathy-c-hall.com. Cathy can be reached at: cathyhall55@hotmail.com.

BY CALEB POWELL

Since having children, my wife and I have fallen in love with the all-inclusive vacation. We sit by a pool, waiters and waitresses bring us drinks, and when we want a break from the piglets, we put them in daycare. However, our last vacation in Mexico (and first exclusively at an inclusive) set the stage for a little poolside confrontation. My wife and I lounged and watched our daughters play with 4-year-old Cody. Cody ended up gravitating toward and playing with Ava, also 4 and the oldest of our three daughters. To swim, Ava needs an inflatable ring just to paddle clumsily to and fro. Cody saw her struggle, boasted he could swim "all by myself!" then he darted to the deep end to frolic with his mother. Soon, Ava cried out that she had to pee, and my wife accompanied her to a nearby bathroom. When Cody returned, he asked why Ava had disappeared, and I told him that Ava had to use the bathroom.

Cody stood straight up in the shallow water and stated boldly, "Why doesn't she pee in the pool?"

"Because you can't pee in the pool," I said.

"Yes you can."

"But you shouldn't."

"My mother told me I can."

"No she didn't."

"Yes she did!"

"But you shouldn't pee in the pool. That's why we have a bathroom."

When I was a kid we had a local pool with one of those signs outside the boys and girls bathrooms: "We don't swim in your toilet. Please don't pee in our pool." I used mutations of this joke with my daughters. When they sat at the dinner table and made designs in the potatoes or started playing Lincoln Logs with their green beans I'd take their plate away, exchange it with a few Legos, and say: "Here, why don't you eat your toys?"

I therefore asked Cody, "Do you swim in the toilet?"

Cody stood unfazed and shook his head.

"Right, that's because you don't want to swim in water that someone pees in. You swim in the pool and go to the bathroom in the toilet."

Cody replied, "My mother said I can pee in the pool."

With this, he hurtled his body into the water and zoomed back to his mother's side. He swam amazingly well, and confirmed my oft stated belief in the inequality of the sexes, replete with superior male athleticism and inferior male intelligence. Then I wondered: What about his mother? Obviously this woman needed to rise to the standard of her gender.

My wife returned and I told her about the little varmint as Ava hopped into the pool. We were a little grossed out, but it was vacation; we could shrug it off and focus on our daughters, and we did so until Cody returned and announced, "Hey!"

He walked to the edge of the pool and triumphantly beamed. "I just asked my mom and she said it's okay. I can pee in the pool if I want!"  Then he jumped in and remained almost motionless for what seemed like 30 seconds. I looked at the water in front of the kid's shorts and almost saw an inversion of warm urine and cool water forming convection currents. I gave this matter a few seconds thought. The waitress placed a beer by my side as if on cue and I grabbed the glass, went into the pool, and trudged into the deep end where the mother leaned against the pool's edge.

"Hello. Um. I'm the father of Ava -- the girl Cody's playing with."

"Oh, hi," she said. We introduced. She hailed from Minnesota. As I live in Seattle, and it was December, we both agreed the weather in Mexico was a vast improvement from our homes. We exchanged parental pleasantries, but before we went overboard praising one another's cute damned offspring I observed, "Yes, Cody's an excellent swimmer. I'm impressed. One thing, though. He told me he could pee in the pool, and that you gave him permission." I then finished my beer in a few large gulps.

Minnesota Mom said, "Yes. So? The pool's chlorinated."

"Even so, what if everyone peed in the pool?"

"It's no big deal. They use a lot of chlorination."

Rather than lecture her about manners and bad habits, I scrunched my face and closed my eyes for a few seconds. I then splashed and pushed water in her direction.

"Ahhhhh. I just relieved myself, but don't worry, the water's chlorinated." I departed as expletives started to roll. I wondered if she had a large husband lurking, but I was more concerned on catching the waitress standing by my wife so I could order another beer. I returned, requested a Negra Modela, then told my wife of the chat with Minnesota Mom, as well as my departing act.

"You didn't really pee, did you?" My wife asked.

I smiled and said, "Of course not." (And this will be the version I'll tell my offspring.)

The mother and her son already had started to leave the pool area, hopefully the wiser. Yet for all that, what had I learned? Sophisticated logic confuses the hell out of me, the philosophies of "treat others as you would like to be treated" and "what comes around goes around" could cancel out one another. And "turn the other cheek" is nothing more than a platitude. But, I had a story for my daughters. I would tell them every aphorism has a time and place, yet these golden rules become morally ambiguous when applied to peeing-in-the-pool etiquette.

Caleb Powell lives in Seattle with his beloved wife and daughters. He has lived and worked in Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, Guam, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and The United Arab Emirates. He is the author of The World is a Class (a guidebook) and a puzzle book for students of Chinese, Chinoku. Literary work is forthcoming or in various magazines, including The Baltimore Review, descant, Drunken Boat, Gulf Coast, The Los Angeles Review, Pedestal Magazine, Post Road, The Rio Grande Review, The Texas Review, Yankee Pot Roast, and Zyzzyva. Visit him at: Notes of a Sexist Stay-at-home Father.

BY TIFFANY CLARKE HARRISON

I'm taking an executive communications class this summer and on the first night we talked about how over 90% of our communication is nonverbal. This is interesting to me because I spend most of my day barking at certain children who either:

a) Insist on telling Mommy they have to go pee-pee three times at Ikea only to sit on the toilet and do everything but expel bodily waste;
b) Try to vomit on purpose because a certain younger brother has just vomited and is getting all of the attention;
- or -
c) Call every black man we see out in public "Daddy."

Basically, I talk all day. And by talk I mean: "Stop that!" "Sit down!" "Get off of your brother!" "Eat your lunch!" "‘I'm serious!" "Are you kidding me?!" "Did you just poop?!"

You know, normal stuff.

And the "Did you just poop?!" isn't even really accurate because, in addition to calling me "Tiffany" instead of "Mommy," my three-year-old daughter insists on referring to the products of her bodily functions as yellow and/or brown.

Me, smelling poop: "G, did you just poop?"
G: "No..."
Me: "Did you go brown?"
G: "BROWN!!!"

Because, apparently, brown is way more awesome than yellow on the exclamation meter. Really, it's a wonder I'm still able to form simple declarative sentences.

So, when, a couple of weeks ago as I was leaving class, and talking to a classmate about things completely unrelated to the colors of urine and fecal matter, I somehow chose to completely ignore her nonverbal cues of trying to escape from me and instead kept right on talking. She would back away, I would move forward. She'd rifle in her bag for her keys, I'd try and woo her with another bit of information. She'd pretty much ceased responding to anything I was saying, I kept right on saying it.

Now, not only have I been lobotomized by my children, but I'm also socially inept. Kind of like the sad girl behind the counter at Starbucks who offers too much information.

Overly chipper and self-absorbed customer: "How are you today?!"
Sad coffee girl: "Miserable. Lonely. Wallowing in self-pity and doubt."
Customer: "Great! I'll have a grande vanilla skim latte please!"

See? Social pariah. I'm well on my way.

Tiffany is a full-time mom to a toddler and infant. She's also a wife, MBA student, and a writer/blogger. She is actively seeking representation for her first novel and hopes to finish her second this year. Also, if she has to watch another episode of "Dora the Explorer," she might soil herself. For more nonsense, visit: http://otvnonsense.com, where motherhood meets verbal diarrhea. Tiffany can be reached at: tiffontheverge@gmail.com.



BY AMY RODRIGUEZ

He had me at: "You're a great mom."

Although all moms want encouragement, I especially longed to hear a pediatrician, an expert in parenting, commend me on my role as mother to my newborn daughter, Mia. After three months of bed rest, numerous hospitalizations for preterm labor, and then two surgeries post-partum, I entered motherhood a shell of my former self. My body and mind felt trampled by the medical interventions necessary to deliver a healthy baby and then, to save my life. So my heart swelled when Mia's pediatrician -- "Dr. L" -- smiled at me reassuringly at her first month appointment and said I was a great mom. I was hooked -- a teensy bit in love.

I had carefully selected Dr. L. after researching a number of pediatricians. I had been especially impressed with Dr. L when I saw him on the local news. Not only did he appear affable, but he did the first newborn visit at home, so mothers didn't have to leave the house right away. Clearly, this was a compassionate man. When I met with him during my pregnancy, I did notice he appeared a bit jumpy, but then again, so was I, so I let it go.

By our daughter's four-month checkup, my husband and I had a list of questions for Dr. L, including one triggered by our friend's six-year-old daughter. We hadn't noticed any anomalies until she asked, "Why does your baby have a black bellybutton?" We tried to play it off like we knew why, but as soon as my husband and I were alone, we asked one another, "Why does she have a black bellybutton?"

Hopefully, Dr. L could give us the answer.

Dr. L greeted Mia and me that day with his wide smile, red hair askew, and said, "Looks like you are doing well!"

I grinned, feeling like a child who had received a gold star from the teacher. We looked like we were doing well! That must mean I was doing a good job! Still glowing, I carried Mia into the exam room. Dr. L then leaned over Mia and babbled, "Ooh! Here's my girl with the webbed toes."

"What?"

"Webbed toes. See?"

"What?"

"I told you that."

I did not remember much of the first four months, but I am certain that I would have remembered if someone had told me my first-born had webbed toes. He then showed me that her second and third left toes were joined at the bottom joint and only separated at the top joint.

I'm not sure which was scarier: that I had not noticed this in four months or that my pediatrician had forgotten to tell me. I had never actually done the counting of fingers and toes that everyone claims to do when the baby is born. Perhaps I should have been more observant. How many ears did she have?  Eyes?  What else had I missed? I tried to compose my thoughts. "What does this mean? Will she walk okay?"

"Honestly?" he said. "I believe humans are all evolving to one toe. If you study mammals throughout the ages, you will see that horses have one 'toe' or hoof. Humans only require their big toe for balance. The smaller toes aren't necessary. As animals evolve, they tend to lose the things that they don't need, like small toes. We can actually say that Mia's advanced and more evolved than the rest of us."

What?!

As a mom, of course, I liked hearing that my daughter was advanced at anything, even toe-evolution, but this did seem a bit far-fetched. Dr. L even said that she'd be a good swimmer due to the webbing. Jokes and reality were getting all mixed up. Was he serious?

After digesting the shock of the webbed toes, I brought up the belly button. "It's black, I said. "Why is that?"

He sounded surprised and oddly fascinated. "Black? Well, let's take a look. Oh, that! That's just lint!"

My stomach sank. Disgusted with myself, I couldn't speak. First, I hadn't noticed the webbed toes. And then I hadn't realized that lint had been piling up into a ball inside her belly button? I'd been so busy focusing on sleep patterns and nursing that I had failed to look deeper. I had been focused on survival. Lint and toes hadn't made the life or death list, so I hadn't even noticed. Not only had I let Mia's bellybutton get full of lint, but I had to have it pointed out by a six-year-old. I immediately tried to rub the lint out of her belly button. Dr. L. cut in and scolded, "Oh no, that will hurt her."

"How am I going to get it out?"

"You won't. It's just part of her. It might fade over time."

Fade? How? Does it get eaten up inside? My baby, my responsibility, was going to be on the beach someday, trying to explain to her friends that she had fuzz in her bellybutton forever because of her mother? I was mortified.

The doctor sensed my horror and said, "Don’t worry about it," but how could I not worry about it? Dr. L raised his eyebrows and tilted his head as he said, "You know, most parents would feel lucky. Many children have much bigger problems to worry about."

Now I felt terrible. Here, the expert -- the expert on the local news even -- thought I was being an ungrateful mom. I had fallen from his good graces. I tried to explain that I didn't consider the lint itself a problem. I considered the fact that I let it pile up in there the problem.

His eyes widened, and he nodded. He said, "Oh, not lint-lint. Bellybutton lint. It's a slang term we use in the medical field. It means blood vessels and stuff. Some babies have it when they're born. The vessels are visible, but sometimes they just go away."

Phew, I sighed. What a relief! Then I thought, "Medical slang? Are you kidding me? Who says lint when they mean blood vessels?" I briefly felt a rush of anger and again noticed his fidgety movements and his crooked glasses. Still, I let it go. He was the doctor, after all. So what if he proselytized about the evolution of one-toed humans? He no longer thought I was ungrateful. He had said we looked like we were doing well. What more could I ask for?

Over the next couple of months, Dr. L's comments became odder, but I continued to justify them (even while my friends raised their eyebrows and shook their heads when I told them my stories). He said things like, "Oh my! You think you're anxious? My house is a study in anxiety. You should see us!" So, even though he probably shouldn't have been telling me how anxious he was, I chose to see it as a measure of success: I was less anxious than a doctor.

At another visit, he passionately declared, "No one needs med school. Doctors just need some sense. School's beside the point."

"Yes," I agreed, as I nodded my head. "That is what we all need: common sense.  Who needs school?" I said, even though I was a teacher. I was a cult member brainwashed during a vulnerable (sleepless) state.

But then I remembered our talk when I was on bed rest. To stop my pre-term labor, I had to take terbutaline, which basically has the same side effect as speed. I thought I was going to jump out of my skin, spending my days lying in bed with my heart racing and my hands shaking. Dr L had said, "Now that's some good stuff. I've always wanted to try some myself. I bet it's quite a rush."

While these comments and his increasingly-disheveled appearance sounded alarms, it took my friends staging what now seems like an intervention at playgroup to convince me to make the break. As I relayed the story of him "wanting a rush," they blurted out, "Good God! He's crazy! You've got to get out of there!"

I had sensed all along something wasn't quite right, but with their words my qualms were validated. I gained the confidence to leave. Sadly, I realized that it didn't matter that he said I was a great mom because Dr. L, most likely, was crazy.

Quietly, I switched to another doctor.

Months later, I saw Dr. L headlined in the newspaper for blogging flippantly about his own defense in a malpractice case.

Looking back, it's so clear that I should have left him right away, but I dismissed my concerns because Dr. L told me what I needed to hear. Having a pediatrician tell me I was a great mom trumped him talking about the evolution of one big toe and that he craved drugs used in pre-term labor. I cringe when I think of the way I ignored my instincts, and yet I know I'll always be a sucker for a doctor, teacher, pizza-guy, gas station attendant, or door-to-door salesman who tells me I’m a great mother.

Amy Rodriguez is a writer living outside of Boston with her husband and two spirited kids, Mia and JJ. Amy has always been type-A, and she must admit that motherhood has rocked her organized world. There aren't any performance reviews to check off accomplishments and, if there were, she wouldn't be checking off too much (which is why she's so susceptible to listening to people who tell her she's a great mom). She writes for baystateparent Magazine and has been published on www.babble.com. She can be reached at aimrodriguez@yahoo.com.

BY CHRISTIAN DZADEK

Never before had I wanted to bring my clenched fist into swift contact with the wizened face of an elderly woman, than in that moment.

The deceptive thing about Judy is her look -- sympathetic gestures, tender features, energy rattling through her sexagenarian bones and bubbling from her mouth; she sings the exuberant prose of a hospital lactation consultant. She's your grandma, only sweeter and even more sincere. Her eyes say, "I'm here to help you succeed!" in ironic unison with the message embroidered across her La Leche League cardigan in soft pink letters. But all of this, friends, is a façade.

It's not her tone, and it's not even her suggestions -- many of which would likely be helpful under different circumstances. It is her rare combination of poor timing and utter tenacity, a one-two punch presently driving me, one sentence at a time, toward violent, geriatric abuse in only my first three hours as a father.

Our 20-hour delivery, culminating in an un-planned C-section, has understandably exhausted us. But for Judy's resolve, my pallid wife would be asleep right now. Ignoring her tired, sloping eyes, nodding head and silent pleading, Judy insists on teaching us everything she knows about breast feeding, willing our weary psyches to comprehension. She will accept nothing less. She is, after all, here to help us succeed. Or, to talk until our brains, emulsified by her didactic encouragements, ooze from our lifeless skulls --  depending on how you look at it.

I had imagined myself more serene in this moment, glowing in the holy dawn of parenthood. But all I want to do is punch our lactation consultant in the face.

The whole concept of lactation bends the mind in the first place. For example, including the nurse assisting Judy, there are presently three women literally groping my wife's breasts. Meanwhile, I feel neither neglected nor aroused because, in point of fact, the desirable flesh I once craved has become a science experiment.

"Was that a swallow? I think I heard a swallow." I lean close to the hospital bed.

"No," Judy says. "That was a click."

"What's the difference?"

"She shouldn't be clicking. She's doing it wrong."

Doing it wrong? My daughter is three hours old, and already Judy hates her.

My wife cracks her delirious eyes open. "Is there even anything coming out?"

"Not yet," Judy soothes. "Just keep at it. She's got to get to the colostrum."

I am crushed beneath the combination of Judy's incessant directions and the weight of questions that are only now occurring to me. Like, what the hell is colostrum anyway? And if it's so good for you, why don't they put it in my multivitamin? And don't you realize you're making my tremendously fatigued wife feel like a failure? And during your next soliloquy on "the football hold," would you mind opening your mouth a little wider so I can give you a paper-cut tonsillectomy with your "Breast Feeding is Truth" pamphlet?

"Was that a swallow?" My ears are inches from the science experiment.

"No."

"It sounded different. I think I heard a swallow."

Judy sighs at me.

This goes on for one hour and forty-five minutes. My wife zones in and out of consciousness, crying whenever she wakes. Judy sings milky incantations over us. I glower. My daughter screams from hunger. She probably hates Judy, too, only she's less bashful about it than I.

"Can't we just give her some formula?"

Judy stops her breast massage and looks up at me. Her spine draws to a point. "That is the worst thing you can possibly do."

"But she's crying so loud."

"If you want to get her to stop crying, just remember the "Five S" soothing technique: Swaddle, Side-lying, Swing, Shush, and Suck." Judy continues to grope and place.

I imagine ways to modify the "Five S" technique so I might use it to render Judy unconscious, but I force a smile that I hope doesn't look maniacal.

My wife is awake, sobbing quietly, trying in vain to manage the football hold. I sense a layer of being, the one throbbing just beyond my skin. I feel it crack. The light in the room changes, sharpening all the colors, and my body begins a slow prowl toward Judy. I have passed the point of no return. As I stretch out my hands to take hold of her, a knock at the door gives me pause.

Another elderly woman quietly slips inside: My grandma. She glows in a way I've never noticed before. With some kind of magic she whisks Judy away and out of the room, slipping me a bottle of formula as the door closes behind them. I have witnessed a miracle. I have never loved my grandma more than in this moment.

I hold my daughter as she devours the bottle; I look into my wife's handsomely drained face as she sleeps; I feel what I think new fathers are supposed to feel. New life is like the kingdom of God in that you can't say what it is, only what it is like. Becoming a father is like finding something you lost, indefinitely. It's the most powerful feeling I've known.

Later, as we begin to live our lives in alternating minutes between the right side and the left side, in the hours between feedings, and days that might as well be nights for all we are worth - we remember Judy's lessons and try to pretend they aren't helpful. Her knowledge is indisputable, but heed this warning, friends: The enthusiastic old woman in the cardigan will crush you with persistence. She cannot be slowed or contained. She is Judy, and she is indomitable.

So, when the hospital asks you if you want a lactation consultant, decline and ask for your actual grandma instead. Unless Judy happens to be your actual grandma. If Judy is your grandma, you're screwed.

Christian lives and writes in South Florida and is a recent graduate of the University of Nebraska's MFA program. He recently became a father. Christian can be reached at: CHRISTIAN_DZADEK@pba.edu.

BY AMY RODRIGUEZ

Eight years ago, my husband and I listened to our minister at pre-marital counseling. "Couples tend to argue about three things," he said. "Money, sex, and family." He never mentioned sleep.

At midnight, Dave performed his hundredth deep knee bend while holding our shrieking four-month-old son, JJ, in his arms. Sweat ran down Dave's back, and his head throbbed at the pitch of JJ's scream. He tried singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad," while bouncing on the exercise ball, while I lay blissfully asleep in the basement, ensconced in heavenly silence.

We hadn't planned to live this way. We'd seen the magazines that proclaimed that we could keep our relationship hot after having a baby. We could: "go to bed at the same time, plan 'date nights!' and make the bedroom a haven." We thought we'd lie together in our king-size bed with the extra-soft sheets, crossing the hall to the baby's room for nighttime feedings. After all, that's what we had done with our firstborn.

But then JJ screeched his way into this world with a terrible case of reflux. He couldn't sleep unless he was upright in our arms, which meant one of us was always awake, standing, and covered in spit-up. Despite this, Dave and I tried to maintain our coupledom. Neither of us moved into JJ's room, we used our bed as home base, and we kept JJ out of it. And, every few weeks, when Dave and I happened to be awake without a baby screaming, I tried to fire up and make a plan. Date night! Where could we go? What should we do? But even the planning overwhelmed me and I'd drift back to: "God, it'd be so much better if we could just stay here and sleep."

"Look at me," I'd whimper, pointing to the bags under my eyes, JJ writhing in the sling around my neck.

"Look at me," Dave would insist, hair askew, holding up his third cup of extra-bold, black magic coffee.

The thing was: we were sympathetic to each other. We just had no solution to the problem.

That's when the twin size mattress, pushed into a corner of our basement, began to beckon. Months earlier, my parents had given us my childhood mattress. We'd thrown it into the cellar where our preschool daughter had christened it "the jumpy bed" and used it accordingly. But now, the jumpy bed held a different allure.  The basement was dark, no morning light filtered in to wake an exhausted soul, and the mattress was not one, but two, floors away from the nighttime shrieking. The damp, unfinished basement and its mattress with fifteen-year-old sheets called to us. To both of us.

But only one could be lucky enough to be lulled to sleep by the dehumidifier, in the newly-named Batcave, because the other would have to be upstairs, awake. As a couple, we had negotiated finances, chores, and vacation destinations but never sleep. Discussing family, sex, and money were simple in comparison.

After much debate, including variables like work demands, personality, and baseline sleep schedules, we came to an agreement. I got the Batcave from 7:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Dave got it from 1:00 until 7:00. When Dave came home from work, I gave him a quick kiss and ran to the cellar. I collapsed onto the mattress without turning on a light.

Meanwhile, Dave began his six-hour shift of rocking, bending, and sweating. At 1:00, Dave was officially off-duty and made a break for the basement, sometimes with our shrieking son in hand. He tried to restrain his glee as he flopped into the bed almost before I was out of it. As I climbed the cellar stairs, he mumbled updates on milk, spit-up, and diapers.

At first, Dave and I were especially kind to each other. I'd say, "You have a big meeting tomorrow, Baby. Why don't you stay downstairs for the night?"

Or he'd say, "Stay in the Batcave all night. I'll only get you if I'm really desperate."

But after a few weeks, the real world kicked in. Dave had to negotiate deals with clients who expected him to speak in complete sentences and to have brushed his hair. I didn't have to speak in full sentences, but I had to bounce JJ for the entire day while entertaining our daughter and answering her questions about heaven, pregnancy, and where chicken nuggets came from. Insidiously, the score-keeping or, should I say, sleep-tallying began. Our desperation led us to argue over minutes. "Why'd you get me at ten of 1:00? That's not 1:00," I'd grumble.

All we thought about was sleep and who might be getting a teeny bit more.

"Guess who's still in the Batcave?" I'd complain to my friend on the phone at 8:00 a.m.

"Maybe I'll be in the Batcave at 6:00 tonight!" I'd announce to Dave as he emerged an hour late from his wake-up.

We sleep-tallied our way through six grouchy months, which, at the time, seemed never-ending. I am happy to say we survived, thanks to our commitment and thanks to our Batcave. I wish I hadn't worried about the magazines that promoted post-partum passionate nights, which made me feel like something was wrong with us. Looking back, nothing was wrong with us. When you're barely sleeping, sleep trumps all, including fun, romance, and laughter. Who wants to see a movie, even with the love of your life, if your head is going to explode? Who wants to go for a drink if it takes up your allotted sleep minutes?

I would not wish sleep deprivation on my worst enemy. What I do wish is that I could have seen the future and gained some hope from it. Today, the kids jump on the newly-renamed jumpy bed in the playroom, formerly known as the Batcave. Dave and I now go out for dinner or drinks. We have conversations about things other than sleep. And best of all, we sleep together in our king-size bed (with an occasional visit from one of our young children). Who knew?

Amy Rodriguez is an award-winning writer for baystateparent Magazine whose work has also appeared on www.babble.com. She's still trying to catch up on the sleep she lost during those dark, desperate months. As a physical therapist, she uses humor and compassion to treat her elderly patients. As a mom, she uses the same skills to get through the day. She can be reached at: aimrodriguez@yahoo.com.

BY DAN SARLUCA

Small children and cats seem to like me. I have no idea why, as I don't particularly care for them. Kids that is -- cats I like well enough. Although I'm allergic to most of them (cats, not kids). Within minutes of entering someone's home, any toddler or feline on the premises will be sitting at my feet gazing up at me in slack-jawed wonder.

With my track record, I had mixed feelings about spending an evening with my wife visiting our friends Karen and Michael and their two small boys at their new house in Queens.

Michael picked us up at the train station in his minivan at a quarter to five. The two boys -- Robert, three, and Jack, one-and-a-half -- were strapped into their car seats and gawked at me as I climbed into the front seat. We had met Robert when he was a baby, but this was our first look at Jack. Lauren settled next to the boys in back. There was no shrieking or crying on the ride to their house, so I figured everything was going pretty well.

Until the moment we all got in the house, when Jack decided I was his new best friend. He ran up to me and, as he locked his arms around my right leg, he slammed his forehead into my testicles with the precision of a soccer player redirecting a corner kick. It wasn't the head butt I minded so much -- it was more the overwhelming joy it seemed to give him; he beamed up at me with an impish grin.

This wasn't my first painful encounter with a marauding toddler. A few months earlier, some other friends had visited our apartment with their two-year-old son Walter. I'd heard that he really liked the animals at the petting zoo, so when he grew restless I gave him a handful of beer coasters, with pictures of sheep on them, that we had bought in Ireland. He seemed to enjoy scampering around the apartment and handing out the coasters to everyone, but during one pass, as I was making my way to the kitchen, he "accidentally" shoved his palm between my legs. This produced nervous giggles all around and an apology from his parents.

"Sure," I said, "laugh now. But when he goes to day care tomorrow and shows everyone the beer coaster he got after touching some strange man's pee-pee, child protective services might not think it's so funny."

Determined not to be victimized again, I kept a close watch on Jack and his brother as they trailed us during Michael's tour of the new house. By the time the four of us got to the basement, I let my guard down. As I stood at the foot of the stairs listening to Michael describe their plans for re-doing the main room, Jack ran past me and started to stumble. He put his hand out to steady himself and managed to whack me -- you guessed it -- in the crotch.

"Sorry about that," Michael said casually, as if having your testicles pummeled like a piñata was an everyday occurrence. "You know he didn't mean anything by it."

"I'm sure he didn't," I replied, wondering if instead of spending that thirty dollars on a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape we'd brought with us, the money might have been better invested in an athletic cup.

I was hoping to put the experience behind me, but male anatomy seemed to be the hot topic of the night. After dinner I excused myself to use the restroom; when I returned, Robert, the older boy, sidled up to me.

"Did you go to the bathroom?" he whispered, so only I could hear him.

"Yeah, I went to the bathroom," I said, figuring he was just curious.

"Pee-pee?"

I nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Standing up?" he asked earnestly.

"Um...yeah," I said. "Standing up." This seemed to satisfy him and he wandered off. Later I found out that he was fascinated when his mother told him that girls had to sit down to urinate.

"Apparently, he's been asking everyone that," Lauren reported. I had to admit it was a more provocative line of questioning than I heard at most dinner parties.

By eleven o'clock, Jack had finally gone down for the night, but Robert was still wide awake and camped out on the couch next to me, listening to the fourth playing of his favorite song: Livin' la Vida Mickey. At least he now seemed more interested in my beard than my potty habits, and with the rosy glow produced by two bottles of wine and a post-dinner Scotch, I was starting to think maybe kids were better than cats.

After all, kids don't make me sneeze or rub my eyes. But then again, I thought -- eyeing Robert with trepidation as he stood up on the couch in his stockinged feet for one more boogie with Mickey -- I never had to worry that one false step by a cat might alter me from a tenor to a soprano.

Dan Sarluca is a freelance writer who lives in Brooklyn. His work has been published in Newsweek, the New York Daily News, The Writer, and The Riverdale Press. He can be contacted at dan@dansarluca.com.