It started last night just as I was falling
asleep, of course. At the sound of the “thump” I woke from my setting
sleep, threw the covers off me and bolted out of bed across to the kid’s room…
I had spent a good amount of time and love
earlier in the day to set up the beds in Tyler’s
room so both kids could sleep in there and we’d finally have Teagan out of the
bassinet in our room. All of this has caused me much mixed
emotions. Graduating Tyler to his “big boy bed” because it was time (1st
sniffle – my baby is growing up!) and because his old crib would soon be
Teagan’s new bed, wanting to get Teagan out of our room into the other room
because she was outgrowing the bassinet (2nd sniffle – my little
baby is growing up!) and to hopefully start getting better sleep if I’m not
hearing every gurgle, fart, sigh and mini fuss she makes in the night next to
my bed. However, not hearing any of that means not hearing that she’s
still alive and I remember how hard that was when we kicked Tyler out of our room. As I crawled
into bed knowing she was just 20 feet away, bed to crib, across the hall, I
still felt as if a piece of me was missing. Do I feel this way when she
naps during the day? Sometimes. I wonder if it’s because as a woman
I carried this child in my own body for 9+ months, going through a range of
changes in body and mind starting with morning sickness to being kicked in the
ribs from the inside to screaming in pain as this new human enters the world
through my small life porthole. When my children aren’t with me, whether
they are in the next room or at home as I run errands solo or wherever, I feel
like something isn’t right. In general of course when I’m at home it’s
not a feeling that overwhelms me and causes me to abandon house cleaning or web
surfing or showering just so I can stay in the same room where they are playing
or napping. As well as it not usually affecting me when I’m out and
about, other than saying to myself out loud “wow, this is what it was like to
run errands before kids! This is SO easy!” But as I’m driving down
the road to Trader Joe’s I will look a few times in the rear view mirror at
Tyler’s empty car seat, at the empty space where Teagan’s car seat goes, and
I’ll wonder for a moment if it all wasn’t just a dream and how sad I would be
if that were the case.
Where was I? Oh yeah, so I put all
Teagan’s new garden butterfly bedding, bumpers, bed ruffle, etc. on the crib as
I transferred some of Tyler’s bunny meadow bedding to the toddler bed and some
into storage and the room was complete. I remember when the room was a
cluttered office and then the excitement of painting the walls for our first
baby and now it was Tyler & Teagan’s room! Tyler has been a little
resistant to moving into the big boy bed, understandably, so I’ve tried to make
it as comfy and cocoon-like as possible for him and list for him all the
reasons it is way more fun and grown-up to be in it vs his old crib. This
was the very first night they would be sharing the room. I’d been
worrying about how it would work since the kids go to bed at different times
but for the first night, at least, it went smoothly. Tony was out so I
bathed both kids, one at a time, then read to them with one on each knee and Teagan
grabbing at the pages and trying to eat them and then reaching over to tug on
big brother’s ear. Then I turned out the lights and rocked them both in
that position for a few minutes, telling Tyler softly that if his sister
started crying in the night and mommy or daddy didn’t come right in that he
could come get us. Not sure why I said that, maybe so he didn’t feel like
he’d have to sit there listening to her cry, although I’d have had to gone deaf
for that to happen. I tucked Tyler in and then laid Teagan in her new
bed, suddenly irritated at myself for not raising the mattress back up to
infant level from toddler level since it was physically impossible this way for
me to lean down and give her sweet cheek a kiss and whisper I love you in her
ear :( I will have to fix that today, hopefully she won’t be
scarred for life for missing it one night.
Then there was that horrible “thump!” In a flash I imagined Tyler had fallen out of
his bed (which wouldn’t even be one foot up from a carpeted floor so not only
wouldn’t make such a noise but also wouldn’t hurt him) or Teagan falling out of
bed (which is virtually impossible since she’s surrounded by wooden jail bars)
but I flew out of bed and to their room with the speed & intensity of a
mother protecting her children. Nothing
amiss when I opened the door, just sleeping angels. Hmpf. Back to bed I went. Soon Tony came to bed and I asked him about the noise but he had no idea. Great, am I hearing things now?!
I knew it was going to be a rough night because of it being Teagan's first night out of our room but to add insult to injury I decided to start training Boris not to sleep on our bed. This was the other big reason I wanted to move Teagan out, so I wouldn't disturb her sleep as I no doubt yelled at Boris all night long. Oh boy. I lay there in bed with my eyes wide open, just waiting for that dog to come up the stairs and jump up on the bed. I had it all planned out and knew it wasn't going to be easy but for the sake of my sleep and nighttime mood I needed him off. We have a king size bed, sure, but Boris is a large dog and he likes to sleep right in the middle of the bed! If I can catch him before he settles in I can still get him to move to a different spot but once he's down and asleep it's impossible to move him. I wake up too many nights with the covers pulling off me and this dead weight laying against my leg and I get so angry. It takes a considerable amount of noise and kicking to wake him to move him and that has woken Teagan up in the past. Also when he wakes up he generally decides to get up and stretch his legs at which time he does this thing that's made us dub him Helicopter Head where he shakes his head so fast & hard that his floppy ears make this loud helicopter noise as they smack against his head. It's practically a joke how often and loud it happens.
Eventually Boris came upstairs and jumped up on the bed and I immediately said "NO" and directed him off the bed and to a sleeping pad I'd put on the floor for him. He wasn't having it so he went back downstairs. I settled in, but knowing he'd be back I wasn't totally relaxed. Soon he was back and up on the bed and again I said "NO" and "OFF" and he obliged. We played this game too many times for me to count and then he just sat at the foot of the bed and whined. And whined. And whined. Of course Tony is grumbling "why can't we just let him sleep on the bed?" Then Teagan started crying so I went in to get her and poor Tyler had his head up off the pillow as if he was just waiting for me to come get his noisy sister. I fed her and took her back into the other room. The charades with Boris continued. Then Teagan woke up crying again. This time when I went in to get her Tyler said to me "Mommy, Teagan wants to sleep in your bed with you." Poor guy. I fed her again but when I tried putting her back in her crib she immediately started crying. Tyler was right, she wanted to be in bed with me, so that's where I took her for the sake of getting a few hours rest that night. Oy vey. And after I settled into bed with her and Boris jumped up I didn't even flinch. Fortunately Tony directed Boris to sleep on his side of the bed and that worked for me.
As if all that weren't enough to ruin a person's sleep, in the late-early morning hours it would seem we had a visitor downstairs because with the same intensity as I'd jammed out of bed earlier now Boris was flying down the stairs to defend the house. We heard some scurrying, scratching sounds like animal nails on the hardwood floor and then the sound of Boris running out the back door and down the back steps where he began barking. And barking. And barking. Geezuz! Tony went down to see what all the commotion was about and ended up closing the back door so Boris wouldn't keep going out and running around the backyard barking. Either a neighbor cat or maybe even a raccoon had come in and was eating the kitty food. We've had both happen so it wasn't a surprise. Just another reason I woke up in the morning feeling like a zombie!
Lessons learned:
My kids are going to grow up, I can't stop it and actually wouldn't want to but as sad as it can be I just have to get over it.
Don't try to make more than one big change per night, or maybe per week. It's just a dumb idea.
Next dog, if there ever is one, will be properly trained from the beginning! yeah right.
New location for kitty food probably a good idea.
