The baby is crying in the room next door. She's much more demanding than my last daughter. The last one would wake up and contemplate life with a zen-like attitude. This one . . . she wakes up and crys in a way that you know translates into "Pick my ass up!"

But she is five months old and waking twice a night. The wife and I are fried. We are always tired and not being great partners. The other three girls are suffering too. It's nice that my boss is a woman who raised kids and understands that I am raising this one WITH my wife.

So we have started a little rice cereal and are letting the baby cry herself to sleep, hoping that she will tire herself out enough to sleep through the night. I am hopeful but not confident.

Anbd it tears out your heart to hear a baby cry because it's alone or scared or whatever. You want to go in and hold her just a little. Just enough to reassure her. Instead you blog. A poor substitute. When she was a newborn she was colicy. ( A diagnosis I thought was made up by parents that didn't know what they were doing.) But this crying is reasoned. She's a good baby who only cries for cause. And tonight, I am that cause.

We'll give her another few minutes. Maybe ten. But man, at least when she wakes us up in the middle of the night you know that she is wet or hungry and you can do your job to make it beter.