A big boy bed

It was an eventful weekend filled with a couple of tears...namely mine. At four months shy of his 3rd birthday the little man has moved in to his big boy bed. It was not my idea but since Seb wanted to clear out the basement and the big boy bed was taking up valuable basement space he said "come on honey he'll love it." It was more than just the basement space thing. Seb has been campaining for the big boy bed move on Little S's behalf for a long time. The tears just started spilling out as I saw him taking apart the crib. I couldn't even stay in the room. Maybe it's because I'm so hormonal lately but I just hated seeing the end to that stage.

At the same time as putting together the bed we reorganized Little S's room. It works so much better. I used a lot of Montessori principles, focusing on autonomy and a giant categorized bookshelf for his toys (more on that later). He loves it and plays so much better in his room.



I have to admit that he does sleep better in his bed even though it takes longer to get him settled in. I have to stay with him for at least ten minutes after the lights are out to make sure he stays put. We also have a board that we squinch in the side at night so he doesn't fall out because the bed is pretty high and my friend Bea's neighbor Didier made these kid stairs which we now have so he can easily climb in without having to scale the duvet cover. It's a comfy bed as Seb will attest. He's fallen asleep in it nearly every night while reading Little S his bedtime story.

Meanwhile we're still co-sleeping parents and Little S is welcome in our bed any time he likes. He knows this and oddly he doesn't abuse it. He actually did end up in our bed last night after a bad nightmare woke him up at 2am. I think in the new house we'll stick a mattress under our bed for nights like this. As much as I believe in co-sleeping I find it really hard to sleep with a squirming toddler these days.

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.

And miles to go before I sleep

They say that travel open up new horizons for you and makes you a better and more rounded person. I don't remember hearing that this statement applied to babies as well as adventurous adults, but evidently in a certain baby's case it does apply.

Baby S is doing lots of new and exciting things. He's jumping through all the proper hoops, crawling and teething and babbling at me with the concerted expression of "you know what I mean...know what I'm saying here mom," and I'm really loving it. He's even learned to say hi and wave his hand up and down. But, one of the most noteworthy milestones of all has to do with his sleeping. Upon arriving at my brother's home in Ohio a very tired baby S was plopped without very much decorum or cerimony into a five year old Pack 'n Play for the night. We didn't really plan on co-sleeping since there was only a lone single bed ill suited to a squirmy S, but we had no backup plan. My brother who we affectionately call Mister Safety, and who is likewise not the least bit offended by this title, hadn't been told that we even planned on possibly cosleeping. I knew he would have given me a longwinded and very detailed lecture about the many hidden dangers of baby squashing, and I just didn't want to hear it all spelled out in 'virgo' detail. I had eyed the floor, immediately sizing up the inevitible digs baby S and I would be forced to share. At least there was a piled rug.

And so now for the freaky part. My little angel actually fell asleep in that borrowed, portable bed. That's right he actually slept! And you should have seen my jaw drop when while I was getting the late night, quickie tour of the house by my sister-in-law, my brother showed up to say, "I just went in to check on him and I covered him for you. He's so sweet and..." I'm sure I jumped, I was so startled. "You WHAT? And he didn't wake up...whoa WHAT!?" I was stunned in utter disbelief. He had no idea that for almost nine months S had been curled up in our bed right next to me nursing. No idea that all experiments to tiptoe away from him or check on his breathing if we did tiptoe away had ended in a gutteral primal "WAHHHHHH" of protest. "Okay" I thought. We'll just chalk it up to jet lag. It's just a fluke. After all, he hadn't slept in what, fourteen hours. A baby is bound to do anything under those circumstances.

He never woke once that night. He slept through again and again and EVERY SINGLE NIGHT after that. And here he's still sleeping throught the night. We have no idea why but we won't even question it. I just want to dance a jig or something. Finally after a year I can get a good night's sleep. Sleep is no longer a faded memory of the past. What I used to know as sleep; endless soirees attached to a 15 pound octopus latching it's suction on me for intermittent cocktail hours, has become what it was again; a tired woman with a pillow and a 16 pound baby not so far across the room in his very own bed.

Sleep deprivation

Just as we are in the dregs of preparing the house for the baptism "world summit meeting" luncheon, rapidly hanging drywall and fanning paint dry, Baby S has decided he doesn't want to sleep. He would much rather squirm and protest all night, whining and "ya-ya-ya-ing" himself to a lull at around 4:30am. Who can you blame but his parents?

We cosleep with Baby S and if you read what my philosophy is on AP(attachment parenting) you'll see that my definition differs slightly from the reality. It's basically a very good parenting ideal, obviously marketed by those with perfectly, well-behaved infants. The reality is that if your baby is even slightly high needs, yes it's good for him but his parents will suffer immensely, getting little sleep and lugging about a 20 pounds of very soft baby meat all day long. We do this. We sleep very little because he squirms in bed all night. We carry him all day long. We make our own baby food. We wash load after load of cloth diapers and line dry them. We kiss instead of correct. We snuggle. We have no schedule.

It really is frightening to be a part of a movement you feel wrangled into, but it's you who have wrangled yourself into it. And the worst part is that we didn't even know there was a label for this strange brand of parenting we practice. Seb's parents just call it 'crazed,' mine shrug and call it 'hippie parenting' expecting little else from me, and our pediatrician who is a very mainstream French middle of the road baby doctor just smiles condescendingly at us with a wrinkled brow.

We have finally broken down and bought Baby S a bed of his own. It sits in the corner, matressless. We can't seem to decide on the brand we like. We'd like crib bumpers and blankets but there is a sale in in the catalogue companies and we'd like to see if another company will have their sales too. Meanwhile I feel like we're stalling for time. Either that or Baby S is hypnotizing us at night while we sleep "don't ...buy.... it... don't .... buy..."

So, after the baptism is over we're going to transfer the little flea to his own "lit." A stone's throw away from our own bed, I'm sure it won't be terribly tramatic for him. I will certainly be the one lying there alert with one eye focused on the corner of his bed half the night. I won't sleep much, head and heart spinning with the newness of it all. I will be the one with overflowing breasts and empty arms.
*

Woman on the edge of her bed

the little black belt

I'm all for attachment parenting. I think it's a wonderful concept. I had no idea what it was before having my baby, but after a few weeks I gleefully found I'd signed up for each well-promoted AP activity. After all I was already doing most of these AP things anyway. I felt like I was viewing pamphlets for vacations to Tahiti or Morocco with all of AP's promises lined up and staring me in the face: "An easier lifestyle and happier kids...real honest to goodness emotional bonding (none of that cheap quality time crap!)...hey, what more could you want!" And I went ahead and signed up. After all, I'm the type of mom who yes, in fact ...hates to see her child's tears, ...knows the benefits of breastfeeding, ....can't get anything done unless she wears her sling, ...and selfishly covets her sleep. Yep, yep, yep all me. I just never really read the AP disclaimer which stated just how emotionally stretched I'd be in the end, struggling to stay emotionally attached.

It is for this reason I am changing the name from "attachment parenting" to "attrapment parenting." How on earth did I get here? Or, I'm here now and I can't turn around. What now.

Help.

It's called co-sleeping folks and I'm all for it. Your baby snuggled up between you and your husband. The little tyke just a shirts-lift away from your bountiful breasts bursting with the sweet nectar of life. You don't even stir from your slumber as he helps himself to his midnight and 4am feeds. The whole family breathing in unison. What bliss.

The reality...

A mini, blue-polared, pajama-wearing, judo black belt kicking your gut as he greedily claws at your undershirt. His muffled cries encased in a winter weight goose down comforter that your snoring husband accidentally draped over his sweet little face. The grunts, the cries and the eventual wails which seem to say in a New York cabbie toned voice "Hey lady ...try to be a BIT more speedy we haven't got all day here...you know!" Upon presenting him with your wares he inhales your nipple with such vacuumed force you'd swear he'd swallow it all whole if it weren't attached, leaving it for you to retrieve days later during a particularly memorable diaper change. He sucks like this until blissful sleep overtakes....him. Not you. All this while you cling desperately to the edge trying hard to maintain your fair stake of the "family bed."