do you hear what i hear?...

Somewhere on my body that I, nor a mirror, can't see, there must be an additional ear that popped up during my pregnancy. Upon Alexis' birth, the secret ear was fully formed and could suddenly add dimension to what I thought was an adequate ability to hear. No man has this ability - it's is purely a maternal growth.

During Alexis' pooping disease, she'd inevitably fuss somewhere in the early morning hours - around 4:30 am or so - understandably so considering an enormous pile of poopy was in her diaper as well as other places within her PJs. I'd have to get up, unpackage her from her PJs carefully, wipe her clean as possible, repackage her, feed her (when you wake up at 4:30 and realize you haven't eaten since 8:00pm, you decide that you're not going back to sleep without a bottle, thank you very much), change the sheet, then put her back down. A couple nights worth of that and I couldn't wait to see some normal "stuff" in her diaper.

While it's entertaining to share the details of Alexis' bowel movements, knowing that doing so makes some of you cringe (particularly the non-parents, who had no idea parenting was largely a role of poo cleansing), there's a whole different purpose to my story.

Each morning, as soon as the whimpers began, I was awake. I heard them almost immediately (at least I think so...can't really know since I was asleep, now can I?), whereas Jamie was still sleeping soundly. Ripley and Rambo, who as dogs should also have a heightened sense of hearing, were not disturbed either. Only I, mommy dearest, picked up on the annoying little complaints. And while the thought crosses my mind that Jamie is pretending to sleep soundly, in all honestly I don't think he hears it.

So why, I ask you, is it that us moms are able to pick up on things that others don't hear? Short of it being some creepy extra ear hidden on my body somewhere, I assume it must come with the "motherly instinct" package I received on her birthday. Back in prehistoric times, I guess it was up to the mother to hear when the saber-tooth tiger prowled the cave in search of a small meal. The father was out hunting some sort of gazelle - mom was holding down the fort. And thus developed our sonic ears.

While I do not, by any means, appreciate needing to get up at 4:30am in search of poop, with "why do I have to get up and not him" flitting through my mind, I realize that I'm probably best suited for the task at hand. It's no offense to Jamie. It's simply another part of the "instinct" package that I recieved. Good morning mommy. Good morning poop.