An Open Letter to John

Dear John,

You're a rockin' awesome brother-in-law.  I am so thrilled that you're married to Ashley.  My sister is amazing, as you know, and she deserves someone as great as you.  I know that you will work hard to love her and take care of her, and that your second-shift hospital job which requires you to traipse through the house at 2am is part of that.  I appreciate your effort. 

However, I feel that the following facebook exchange, found in my news feed this week, warrants more commentary* than facebook will permit:

There are so many things wrong here I almost don't know where to start.

Ok, first.  It kind of sounds like you're defending yourself... to me.  You know I'm the wrong audience for that, right?  Offering up some sort of explanation excuses as if I would take your side over hers?  Um, seriously?  Did you really think that was going to happen?  Come on now.  Even if I thought you kind of had a point (which I don't), I would still probably take her side.  I mean, have you met us?

As you know, Mark and I have had similar sleeping schedule conflicts when he comes and goes in the pre-dawn hours for his own crazy shift work, and we've had to create out a pretty intricate system where he gets ready as silently as possible (no hitting snooze! no flushing! no snot rockets in the shower!) and then exits the house as quickly as possible (do not do dishes, do not clang cereal bowls, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, and his jacket better already be out of the front hall closet -- otherwise known as the booming squeaking slamming door of death -- and waiting for him, or it's a chilly ride to work).  When he comes home from night shift, he uses the back basement entrance and does not cross the threshold of the floors where the children and I are sleeping peacefully.  Unless, of course, the children aren't sleeping peacefully anymore, in which case he is more than welcome to come upstairs and play with them so that I can continue to sleep peacefully.

Anyway, I bring all this up not to brag about how wonderful and helpful and considerate and silent Mark is (ok, it's a little of that too), but to tell you that I totally get the sleep-schedule-conflict situation you and Ashley have going on over there.  I do.  Which is why I can say with absolute certainty that your explanations excuses just aren't going to cut it.

1.) You sat on the bed and then took your shirt off?  But that causes so much unneccesary bouncing!  Why would you do that?? Why can't you take your shirt off standing up (since presumably you'd need to put it in the hamper anyway)?  And no, I do not want to hear any explanations excuses about your gimpy leg.  Man up.

2.) Your cell phone -- dim and stealthy?  Not so much.  I can't believe you would take your cell phone, turn it on its brightest setting, and then shine it directly in Ashley's face as she's trying to sleep (I wasn't there, but I can only assume that's how it happened, and it's your word against mine).  Why would you do that??  Mark used to use his cell phone to get out of our bedroom in the early-morning hours too, but... no more.  If a dog can come in the room at night and find its way to bed without a cell-phone light, you should be able to too.  How long have you lived in that house?  Years, right?  You can do it, I promise.  Cell phone light gets my veto.  Effective immediately.

3.) You caused a racket opening and shutting the door, and tried to make out like that was ok because you only did it once?  Why would you do that??  Even once!  Once is all it takes to wake her up!  You know if you turn the doorknob and then push the door open or closed, it will be a much much quieter process, right?  And if your doors still make that much noise, then you need to sacrifice an afternoon of video gaming one day, channel your inner handyman, and fix them up a bit.  Yeah I said it.

4.) You called her grouchy?  Why would you do that??  You woke her up, of course she wasn't in a great mood!  Besides, has calling her grouchy ever gotten her to see your side of things?  No really, has that ever worked for you?  Come on John.  Rookie mistake.

5.) Sleeping diagonally is forgiveable.  See?  I'm reasonable.  Sleep as diagonally as you want, just don't get in her way.  It's a big bed.  You can do that, right?

In conclusion: please stop waking Ashley up. There are no steps you could take that would be considered "too far" to go in your efforts in guaranteeing her a good night's sleep, so get creative!  You can do it!  I have confidence in you to make it happen.  (And remember, if you don't, someday she will bring forth into the world a magical creature called a baby which shouldn't be, but can be, used in loud revenge of this very cellphone-lit moment.  Let's not let it come to that, mmmkay?)

L,E

*with tongue planted firmly in cheek.  you know I love you.