Just a tiny bit of fluff that popped into my head while dosed up on cold medication.
Staying up until four, five and six in the morning wasn't new to me. In fact, I had once considered those small hours of the morning to be my prime, when I was at my best. Traditionally, I'd be at my best with somebody else. Horizontally, vertically; it didn't matter, it was all about money, alcohol and sex, and I was more than okay with that. I'd wave the women goodbye at around noon when we'd both drag our sleepy carcasses out of bed as humanity started to hit us, and then I'd go about the rest of my day. Wash, rinse and repeat night after night. I lived the life I had dreamt of living, the life many people could only wish for. The success of my first novel had set me up for a career I never even fathomed I'd achieve, but now, at five in the morning, I feel as though I'm a victim being pushed to their limits. Life couldn't be more different, and I'm sure I'd read about torture methods that seemed very similar to this. My eyes are heavy, and I have to fight just to keep my eyelids open. The dull pain that settled into the base of my skull a few hours as roared into life, the beat of my heart echoing through my body loudly, reverberating through my blood and muscle, bouncing loudly from bone to bone. I can't remember the last time I had more than five hours sleep in a row, and the thought of it alone is enough to make me yawn.
My bare feet pad around the hardwood floors of the loft I have only called my home for the past six weeks. I've been slightly lackadaisical about my need to unpack, so there are still cardboard boxes littered about the walls. I've been trying to keep them out of the direct path of the loft, which is probably a merit I should applause myself for at a later date because if I hadn't, no doubt I'd have tripped over my own feet. I never would have imagined my life would've come to this, I had been pretty happy living in what my mother had called my 'party bubble'. Now life was inherently different, and as tired and as grumpy as I am, I wouldn't change it for a thing.
I had prepared for her arrival as much as I thought I possibly could. Turns out I was wrong. There is no adequate way to prepare for the birth of your first child. You can read as many books as you'd like, and you can buy all of the things the clerk in the store can tell you that your baby will need. So I had done what any father to be would've done, and I had bought everything. The crib, the bassinet, the car seat, more than one stroller because as I had been told, babies grow at an alarming rate, so why not have a few stored for future use? It seemed the correct thing to do. I had filled the home I had shared with Meredith with baby clothes, sterilizers, bottles, travel cots – everything I thought our daughter would ever possibly need. But now, as I walk around the loft, my eyes blearily falling upon the clock on the wall that rudely tells me in its big, bold numbers that it's 5.35; I realize that it isn't about the thread count quality of her bedding, or the number of educational toys I had pre-emptively bought her. It isn't the amount of clothing she has in her wardrobe, hung neatly on tiny baby-sized hangers that still made me grin when I opened the wardrobe door for the fifth time in three hours.
My daughter doesn't care about materialistic things. She doesn't care whether she's dressed in a onesie Meredith had bought her in Italy (rather than spend time with her daughter she'd rather spoil her from afar), and she doesn't care about the cost of the plush toy monkey she had shoved into her mouth and begun to gnaw on to help ease the pressure of her gums as her teeth fight the good fight to break through to the surface. What I've come to realize is that my daughter cares about her family. It's the people who surround her with so much love that make the difference. It's the way Alexis' eyes light up in the morning when I reach for her in her crib, and the way she laughs when I make monkey bunkey dance across the floor towards her as she sits in her bumbo. It's the way she reaches for mother when she saunters into the loft, her arms outstretched as she picks Alexis up from the floor before showering her with kisses, causing my daughter to squeal with delight.
Even at this hour of the morning when Alexis' cheeks are flushed red and her forehead is furrowed deep in concentration as she gnaws on the teething ring I've just picked out of the freezer, I watch her proudly as her face softens as the cool ice hits her swollen gums. Although she's still fussing, throwing the odd wail in here and there (which I'm sure is for dramatic effect - she is her father's daughter, after all) she rests her head against my chest and I continue walking, the steady rock of my body calming her down as I repeat the same pattern I've exhibited for the past few nights. I can't help but think how much my life has changed throughout the past year. My divorce to Meredith had been mostly mutual, as had the decision to give me sole custody of our daughter. I should've been surprised at Meredith's reluctance to fight me on that, but I wasn't. I had moved into the perfect loft in the city, and I had my daughter.
Everything is loud and messy, and nothing is clean anymore. Lids from bottles lay haphazardly across my coffee table, the counters in the kitchen and the floor. I silently praise myself for buying the dishwasher with the lowest decibel rating, and then I curse myself for forgetting to load the lids into the latest cycle. My living room looked like a battleground for stuffed toys. Rabbits, elephants and teddy bears lay fallen fowl to the mercy of my daughter who had learned to throw with such force, I often wonder if she'd have a career in sports. The pile of laundry stacked high reminds me that I should write my next chapter when Alexis finally goes down for a nap, because the laundry could wait another day. My publisher couldn't, and the fifteen unheard messages on my answerphone would all be telling me that exact same thing.
I don't know whether it was my third or fourth lap of the living room that I noticed Alexis had finally fallen asleep. Gently, I remove the teething ring from her mouth and place it down onto the coffee table as I sit down on the sofa with a sigh, gently shifting Alexis from my arm to my chest. With my free arm, I drape one of her blankets over her back to make sure she's warm enough, and I sit and stare at my sleeping daughter. She is quite possibly the closest thing to an angel I will ever see. Gently, I press a kiss to the soft wisps of red hair on top of her head and say a prayer to whatever God or fate brought Alexis and I together. No longer am I staying up all night with women I have barely met. My nights are now spent singing quiet melodies and whispering the words of my favorite poems to the only woman I would want to be awake with at this time of night. Any thoughts of writing my latest chapter or starting the pile of laundry fade into the background as I slowly allow my eyelids to close and I fall asleep holding my daughter against my chest. My daughter. My Alexis.