One of the most interesting things about babies, I think, is that their line between awake and asleep is really blurry. I guess very few of us wake up like they do on TV and in the movies — with eyes suddenly flying open like a roller blind. But still, with most adults and even my older kids, I can usually tell when they are awake, and when they are asleep, or, in the case of Gal Smiley, in a middle ground known as, “Technically awake, but planning on lazing around in bed for another hour, and don’t even think of talking to me until I’ve had my first cup of juice.”

With the Wee One, it’s quite different. I think I read in one of my baby books that babies have something like eight “levels” of sleep, and between deep sleep and wide awake there’s a whole continuum. When I’m rocking her to sleep, sometimes I’ll think she’s totally out, and just then, she’ll startle and be wide awake again. But equally as fast, she’ll close her eyes and appear to be asleep again. It’s a little maddening, especially when the other two are running wild in the house and I’ve just realised I left an open jar of jam on the table.

On the other end of the spectrum, it’s often quite hard to tell if the Wee One is actually waking up or not. Very small infants will wail when they wake up because they want to be fed, but Wee One is big enough now that she doesn’t have that kind of starvation factor anymore. So when she’s been asleep for a while, she’ll start “snuffling,” which means making little grunting noises and moving her head back and forth, but with her eyes closed. She’s really still asleep, and the snuffling doesn’t mean anything conclusive — she might snuffle for anywhere from five minutes to an hour, and and the end of all that snuffling, she might just go back to sleep, or she might decide to get up. It’s kind of adorable, but also really annoying at 3 a.m., when I’m lying there listening to her snuffle for ages and ages and ages, waiting to see if she is going to need to be fed or not, and it’s like, “Wake up or get off the pot!,” you know?

At nap times, we’ll hear snuffling and even the occasional cry-out, but when we race to her room, she’s still totally asleep. As the Captain would say (he’s kind of on a kick right now), “April Fool!”

I guess with maturity comes the ability to wake up in a sharper fashion. At least for the Captain. In the meantime, it’s time to bring Gal Smiley her juice and the morning paper.