Goodnight decent night's sleep

It was while my mom was visiting last month and we were in the apartment in Lyon that Little S suddenly decided that he'd had enough of this sleeping alone crap and wasn't it all much nicer when the three of us slept all together like those first nine months, huh, huh wasn't it mom and dad? So mom and dad reluctantly caved in and said "it's only for tonight, he's tired, he must be confused with all the changes, his grammy is here and he must be excited..." and all kinds of excuses to cuddle with him, because frankly we naively believed that it would be cute to do it again for a night or two. And so we pulled out two of our mattresses, and plopped them on the living room floor and made a huge bed to sleep with him. Now using the verb sleep in this case is a bit like using the verb swim to describe soaking in a hot tub or the verb eat to describe that toothpaste-tubed stuff astronauts dine on in outer space. It's a terribly inefficient description of something that resembles something but is not it at all or even remotely close to it.

Picture two adults lying side by side together next to a sofa, squeezed in so tight that neither dare move for fear of losing a precious air pocket, their only means of life support, and then picture a luxuriously lounged, blond toddler in race car motif pajamas lying sprawled out in a t-square to the adult combo in the opposing direction of the group. Then imagine that the toddler gets up a few times a night to check out the surroundings, maybe rattle the door a little or walk around in the kitchen looking for his Lego truck under the dessert cart. Then picture the panicked parents feeling around for him at three a.m., brain immediately reeling with the idea that he's in a back alley somewhere shoeless and cute walking towards two junkies and a prostitute with blackmarket baby connections. And then finally picture the whole group falling asleep yet again, toddler snoring loudly, dad wheezing through his nose, and mom saying to herself "should I buy chicken tomorrow and maybe I should try to make pasta fagioli and did I remember to pay Dr. Dieu that seventy-one dollars because I think I forgot to mail the check, and ..." So you know, we didn't get much sleep last week because although he is small he has completely taken over our lives like some kind of strange baby cult-meister and we are unable to release ourselves from his mesmerizing grip.

Strangely enough we thought coming back the the lake house would solve it. He was born here and this is his home after all. He's slept fine here for quite a long time, right? I think it's been over fifteen scot free months of pain free nights, no tears. But alas no it will not straighten itself out here either and the bug it seems has stung hard and he won't even sleep here in our little oasis of noise free bottled water flowing paradise. He's quite the drama man too. He howls and sobs and shivers and sweats. He shakes and moans and screams "how dare you" and "you ruthless baby hating sh*ts you!" in that garbled toddler verbage we know so well. Our every fiber absorbs each retched note. We cower and moan knowing full well he's got us by the parental balls and then we cave in hard. We bring him downstairs and give him warm milk with honey all the while gently explaining that "if you could just cut us some slack little dude and let us sleep maybe an hour or hell forty five minutes, we'll do whatever you want because hey after all you are the boss around here(we mumble that last part under our breath). He gives us no breaks. He spares no one in his quest for the united family and we're forced to pull out another damn mattress and sleep like hippie parents, Flower and Reese and Little Starbeam together against the crazed world of normal people who just can't bond correctly, man.

So Seb left me alone to battle the zombie child and returned to Lyon for his work week. He sheepishly called for the morning after report and I began by telling him what a weenie he was for ditching us, and then went on to tell him that not much had changed and in fact I'd say it had gone from bad to worse. The retched howling started at 8:30 p.m. with a firm javelin-style throwing of Goodnight Moon down the metal steps, loud clangs for the neighbors who love us, and then we were off. There would be none of that story telling crap enticing him to snuggle in for the night, no way. "Look don't even attempt inflicting your yawn-inducing, retro storybook rhyming poetry crap on me lady!" and "whisper hush" this you big stupid adult person who wants some time to herself, no way. get lost!...I mean uh, don't get lost but um, stay and I promise that I won't shatter the cats eardrums, okay." And so the night went on like that until at least one a.m.or maybe later because I stopped caring about time and just started thinking about sleep. I talked to him. I read to him. I did puppet shows with Starlight and Presley and added a new character, Mandy the puppet who just got back from a particularly difficult time in Tahiti where her boyfriend dumped her. But, he hated Mandy and bit her face. Nothing worked but the ineveitable drain of final exhaustion, mine and his.

Tonight it was better. I won a small victory and he fell asleep, early and quickly and with just a little fuss. There were only three puppet shows and six story books, including Goodnight Moon which he listened to suspiciously as if to say, "you know this book is just a book right and not a *yawn* an invitation to... *yawn* and so this means *yawn, yawn* And he let me put him in the bed and he sort of half laid down and then...

silence.