When it comes to my night last night, the title pretty much says it all.

Our little monkey has been more or less sleeping through the night for the last six to seven weeks (so my brain is JUUUUST starting to recover from chronic sleep deprivation — apologies for stupid things I’ve said during that time period coming soon…). It’s that happy period of time every parent looks forward to from, oh, about the seventh month of pregnancy.

And unlike some miracle children, apparently, our little man did not get to this status “naturally.” It took some agonizing on our part, waiting for his digestive system to develop to the point where we felt comfortable letting him go all night without nursing. And then there were those really painful nights at the end where we endured two-plus hours of screaming (typically from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m.), broken by one of us periodically going in to soothe — but not feed — our insistent and noisy little boy.

All the while, I could hear the stories of moms who had it easier echoing in my head “Oh, yes, it was HORRIBLE. He cried for thirty minutes straight one night!” Ha. Thirty minutes. I scoff at your thirty minutes. My kid is PERSISTENT (anyone surprised? no? really?).

That was all in December, all in the past…. until teething took over last week. Now, this, as any parent can tell you, is a special brand of late-night torture. It’s actually worse when the old sleep disruption pattern re-emerges after you think you’re finally done with it. Plus, your sweet little kiddo is not just fussy, he’s in pain, and that hurts your heart as much as it does your sleep-deprived head.

So, last night, when we heard the insistent cries at 2:30, we started doing our parental dance: try a bit of teething pain gel, then the pacifier, and wait 5 minutes. Try the belly rub and soothing words, wait 10 minutes. Then, as we were tossing and turning, debating whether to go back in and stop the tears with a feeding (which would be a setback, and potentially lead to more nights just like this one), I convinced MDH to try one more time with the pacifier. On his way back from the nursery, amidst the tears and screaming, he heard an unexpected sound: drip, drip, drip.

Oh, dear. And oh, yes. Busted hot water heater, crazy leak, potentially ruined Turkish rug. The one I actually bought in Turkey. All bad news at 3:00 a.m. But the good news is, the news could’ve been worse. If it weren’t for a teething baby, instead of two sleep-deprived people buying a new water heater, we’d be two well-rested people buying a water heater, a floor, new hallway carpet, and maybe replacing some sheet rock and/or doors.

So I guess little man actually helped us out last night. We’ll take this into consideration when setting the amount of his first allowance.

MJ Pullen

M.J. Pullen is a distracted writer and the mom of two boys in Roswell, Georgia, where she is absolutely late for something important right now. Her books include quirky romantic comedies and playful women's fiction. She blogs erratically with writing advice, random observations, and reflections on raising very loud kids and dogs. Join her Distracted Readers newsletter list for updates, free content, giveaways and more.