For the past few days I’ve been mentally composing a post about co-sleeping and our experience with it, and my feelings about it now that ToddlerA is sleeping in her crib. Because my Very Good Friend who co-sleeps was about to tip her toe in the crib-sleeping waters, I decided to hold off on that entry, so as not to derail what I consider to be a physical necessity for my friend and her family and my friendship with her. Seriously, how long can one family survive with a Primary Caregiver who sleeps in one hour stretches and only gets 4 or 5 of those a night. I am not kidding. And my sarcastic sense of humor and brusque nature don’t mix well with people existing purely on fumes or sheer exhaustion.
Anyway, so I thought I should refrain from talking about how much I miss snuggling with my sweet baby at night, and how I get a little sad every night when she lunges for the crib and then grabs her paraphernalia (suckies) and rolls over, effectively Shutting Me Out, and so YOUNG!
I’m glad I held back on that poignant entry, even though it would have been a real tearjerker. Because last night she dragged me right back into the Depths of Hell again and I decided that on the off chance we BOTH survived the night, never would that Little Demon be allowed to even smell the duvet on my bed.
Oh, the horror, people. It’s my fault. Or if you want to go with my dad’s theory, and I might just, it’s the fault of a mystery bug bite which has since disappeared but which was impressively big and scary enough to almost keep me from going to work yesterday.
Devil Child woke up at a respectable 8:15, which was AWESOME. Except on days when I work at 12, there’s no wiggle room there for a quick nap before work. No matter, I thought. She’ll nap in the car. Insert weird bite here, huge swollen raised red/white thing on her face. It went down fast and she seemed OK so I went to work anyway. No nap in the car. For the first few hours at work, we had a ball! Oh, it was obvious she was exhausted, but in that cute way where she spins and reels into things all day. There was a brief nap attempt, thwarted by the rug delivery guy, who has to freaking YELL when he comes through the door.
And then how could I say no when G-Pa wanted to take her to his house for a quick ride and the only nutritious food she was to ingest all day? By the time they got back, there was squealing, growling, throwing of toys, hysterical laughter, and the Chasing Game. I knew we were screwed. We skipped the bedtime routine.
At 11:00, guess what, it was Party Time! There was screaming. Throwing of the suckies. Pointing toward the fridge. Faking out after drinking a bottle. She let us get all the way in bed, lights out, before she revealed that, just kidding, she wasn’t ACTUALLY asleep when we peeked into the crib and saw her rolled onto her side, immobile. Time to get out and play! Kitty! Let’s pet the Kitty! OK, so we put the kitty in the bed. (I know, I know) Nope, Kitty is only fun when he’s in OUR bed.
I sent M upstairs, because I love him and because I get less facial injury when she has more bed to flop around in, and I put her in the bed. I woke up 20 minutes later with my hand on her ankle and her head hanging off the other side. Back into the crib. Back out of the crib when she began to make herself gag, and was throwing suckies at my head. I made a bed rail out of pillows and for the next 6 hours, I catnapped while that Little Shit flopped. And wiggled. And whined. And threw suckies. And climbed on my head. And rammed me in the forehead with HER head. And kicked me in the stomach. Dead asleep, the whole time.
We are never Going Back. Kick me out of the AP club right now, if I’m still in there after they caught me in Publix with a sleeping baby in a carseat (gasp!) instead of a sling.
So what I miss is the Other Baby that she used to be. I DO miss the yummy baby smell on my pillow. I do miss the baby sleeping on my chest. I so, so, so miss the smiling baby face peeking over my shoulder in the mornings, gently waking me up. I love the Daytime child that she is, with the words and the signs and the awareness that is growing so quickly that I truly cannot keep up. But I miss my nighttime BABY, cuddly and small enough to lie on my chest or in the crook of my “spoon shape” and not smart enough to climb over the pillows and dive to the floor.
So I suppose that’s part of why we’ll have another. I’m just not ready to believe my snuggling days are over.