a bedtime story

My husband and I, by some miracle, have been blessed with 2 kids who are good sleepers.  I think that I slept well as a child when I finally chose to actually go to sleep.  I wasn't terribly old when my parents decided that I would just come to bed whenever I got sleepy and left me to my own devices, which included putting Barbies in all of my dad's shoes.  And as far as I know, my hubby's parents weren't exactly the scheduled go-to-bed-at-9-o'clock-on-the-dot kind of folks either.  So, the fact that both of our kids (so far) are at least semi-agreeable to the idea of having a bedtime routine and going to bed at a somewhat regular time every night is truly amazing.

I should interject here that we are not rigid conformists to any schedule whatsoever.  We are more what you'd call the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of parents.  I should also remind everybody (including myself) that the Bebe is a mere 5 weeks old and there is still plenty o'time for a rebellion.

And we're going to hope that the beginning of said rebellion did not in fact take place last night.

It all started when it was I and not her father who put her to bed.  I did everything exactly the way he does as near as I could tell, but it just wasn't the same.  The second part of the problem was the fact that her father was already asleep when we actually went to bed and he didn't wake up to snuggle up next to her, which she's also accustomed to.

The snuggling is something I cannot do because she smells me or senses me with her magical food source sixth baby sense or something, so unless I want her to eat every hour of the night instead of every hour minus maybe 2, I try to keep a safe distance.  I thought she was just going to wake up altogether when I laid her down, but with some gentle coaxing and a lot of pacifier reapplication, she drifted off soundly.  I, unfortunately, was not tired at that time, so I laid very still and read for a while.

I was feeling all proud of myself for putting my own kid to bed without actually nursing her to sleep AND getting some bedtime reading time in (something that never happened with the Kiddo until he was close to a year old).  But then I turned off the light and our night of calisthenics began.  Well, ok, I turned off the light and barely drifted off enough to be groggy and then she woke up.  For the next 3 hours or so she wavered between totally asleep and some state of semi-wakefulness which included a lot of wiggling, working her feet out of her sleeper, and grunting reminiscent of a warthog.  Needless to say it wasn't all that conducive to sleeping anywhere near her (although her daddy didn't seem to be having any trouble).

About 3 AM, and after trying to nurse her back to sleep numerous times, I decided it wasn't going to happen and just got up to give her a sleep aid bottle in hopes that a full-er tummy would help her sleep.  We made it back to bed about 3:30 since I got hooked on an episode of Roseanne and had to finish it.  By that time, I was wide awake and my husband had abandoned me to go sleep with our snugglier-than-I-am firstborn.  I managed to drift off eventually, blissfully certain that now that her tummy was comfortably full, she was zonked out we were good until mid-morning.  Also, the Kiddo had gotten up early the previous day and had only a short nap, so that was promising too.

So, naturally, the grunting routine re-ensued around 6-ish.

And the Kiddo came pitter pattering into my room around... 6-ish.

Which coincidentally is also the time my husband is about to walk out the door.

With an infant attached to me and, I might add, not pleased about still being in the bed, a toddler rubbing my ear/playing with my hair/running his hands all over my face and intermittently blocking my air supply, and my husband standing over me saying how much he wished he didn't have to leave but he had to so bye... it didn't take long for me to bolt upright, throw myself out of bed, and stomp into the kitchen.

And so at 6:30, I was sitting in the recliner trying to rock a baby back to sleep while being scaled and still having my ear rubbed by the Kiddo who was none too pleased himself about being awake.

Thus, I've already been up for going on 2 hours and am watching a segment on Sesame Street about how it's all right to cry and am seriously considering it.

Yes, we have 2 good sleepers, which I think makes it worse somehow when they don't sleep well than if they slept poorly all the time.

Bebe is asleep in her swing... and grunting.  Kiddo is sitting next to me... and rubbing my ear.  And I am awake... and wondering how I'm going to feel when I look at the clock a sweet forever from now and it's only 10 AM.

I think a trip to Mam-Ma's may just be in order...