It's Not Quite Lawn Darts

It’s hard to keep any challenge from becoming a little bit of game: “I can make it to the top of this climb!”, “I can lose those two pounds!”, “Will I remember to wear pants to work?” Those sorts of games.
When you were a kid, you might’ve had that dart-based game that was basically a felt “dartboard” at which you threw a velcro-strapped ball. The idea being that you stick the ball as close to the bulls-eye as you can and, oh, you can’t poke your eye out with a ball. This was a great idea, except that, the ball only had, like, four straps of velcro on it, hemisphere and equator-style. This made the ball-sticking a bit of a chore. Could be, that’s all that was available where I grew up: Thanks for nothing, Pamida! Four times out of five, you’d throw the ball at the target, it would thud against the cloth, hung on the door and fall to the floor. A child, bored enough, would pick the ball up and stick it to the target himself.
Getting Max to sleep is kind of like that game: You console him into slumber however he wants that day (deep knee bends, swinging car seat, sacrifice a chicken); then set him in the crib (more on that later) and hope. More than likely, that ball is not going to stick and he’ll wake up. You repeat the ritual until he decides to stay asleep.
Mostly, he’s so cute, you don’t mind when the sleep doesn’t quite stick. Although, admittedly, I never played that stupid velcro-ball-target game at 4am on a work day