Someone may want to call the Vatican. The world has just seen its first miracle under the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI. Yes, last night, while most of us were sleeping, our child was, well, sleeping too. And there you have it, folks – Lou slept an incredible seven uninterrupted hours last night. And this while he’s teething. It is a miracle, and I’m sure His Holiness will agree.

In all honesty though, he has been making longer stretches of sleep these days. More like waking every four or five hours, on a good night. The problem is that he averages about one good night in two, which has led us to a sort of voodoo sleep science in hopes of lengthening his nights. What makes the child sleep well? The dialogue goes something like this:

Yesterday I fed him peas at 11:34, and he woke up every 2 hours. But the day before that it was corn and squash at 11:48, and he slept a solid 5 hours after we put him to bed.

Yes, but you put the blue sheet on his crib yesterday, and he really prefers the green one…

And on and on it goes. Sure we’re deluding ourselves. But it keeps the hope alive - the hope of an unbroken night of sleep, lying just over the horizon. All we have to do is figure out where, precisely, we need to make changes. We must have done something right for seven solid hours…Oh I know, it must have been the snack I fed him at 2:11 pm yesterday – 2 parts rice cereal and one part pureed blueberries, warmed to an exact 99 degrees. Yes, it just seems so obvious, now that I think about it.