In a previous post, I had quickly alluded to the fact that RM has never picked up the habit of sleeping in bed with us. Ever since she was a super midget (aka infant), we have had her sleep in her own bed. I know that some of you are thinking, "How could you have put that teeny tiny little baby in her own room in her own crib right off the bat? You heartless wench!" (That last comment was just rude and uncalled for, by the way. Please be nice). Well, we did it because I am, as I have mentioned before, a paranoid freak who was completely worried that I was going to roll over in the middle of the night and suffocate my child. While there may come a day in her teenage years where that thought might seem a bit more appealing, I assure you it's not where I have ever been with her yet. There have been times where Nicole has said things like, "But she won't be little forever. Can't she just sleep with us once?" And, as I am not TOTALLY heartless, I have entertained that idea only to have RM relentlessly kick and poke us in her sleep while she tosses and turns resulting in Nicole becoming so completely frustrated (and we know how well Nicole does when she's sleep deprived). When we get to that stage (which you know you're at "that stage" when Nicole is now tossing and turning and making the loudest grunts of disapproval one has heard without actually using anything that approaches a civilized language), then I know it is time to return Baby Toss and Turn to her room, which makes everyone in the house much happier.
So, we were kind of plodding along pretty well with our bedtime routine until this past summer when we did all of our travelling (please refer to the my earlier post of "If it's Tuesday, this must be..."). We thought we had it all planned out. We brought an aeromattress to put in our rooms and a baby gate to block her in the bedroom as she was still sleeping in a crib at home. So, during our first trip (in Maine), we set up the aero bed, gated her in, and positioned ourselves near enough that she could see us and hear us, but so that she was still in her room. She cried at first to stay in her bed, but she fell asleep pretty well and was surrounded by her 1st string toys, her favorite books, and her turtle night light that projects stars on the ceiling. When we went to bed, she was as snug as a bug (not a bed bug) in a rug. Later in the evening, I got up to use the bathroom and RM was not in her bed. Well, given my freakish paranoid nature, I immediately checked the baby gate and saw it was still up. I woke Nicole up in a half panic and blurted out, "Where's RM?" She sat bolt upright and we turned on the lights to reveal our little baby girl had curled up on the floor in the farthest corner of the room. She was pretty cold, but fast asleep and I picked her up and put her back in bed hoping this was a fluke. Well, the next night it happened again and Nicole and I decided we didn't want to risk her getting hurt as she tried to get in bed with us or find a corner in an unfamiliar, unbabyproofed (yes, that a word now) room, so we decided to have her sleep with us. Now, at this point, she was older and bigger and I wasn't as worried about rolling over and suffocating her. Now I was worried about suffocating her with my pillow as, for some reason, I assumed she would lose all of her strength and muscle control at night and would become inexplicably paralyzed if any part of her were to touch my pillow (I've already told you that I'm a freak and I have asked you on numerous occasions to stop judging me. Seriously, I'm getting a complex now). Once we made this decision to let her sleep with us, we pretty much gave up on any form of restful sleep happening as we all shared a queen size bed. So, that was Maine and the beginning of the end of the Restful Period.
When we travelled to Florida, we still packed the aero bed, but we never actually put her in it or even unpacked it. On the first night, we were too tired from the car trip to unpack it and pack it up again in the morning, so we decided against it. Once we reached our "permanent" hotel destination in Florida, the room in our suite housed a king size bed and there was no more room for the aero bed without it being in the bathroom and there was no way I was going for that. So, we all slept in the Big Bed with the 1st string and the night light off to the side. What was disheartening for me about this was, aside from a California King, we were now sleeping in the biggest bed possible and this STILL was not enough room for the smallest in our brood. She kicked, poked, slapped, and headbutted all while in the midst of a very deep, deep sleep. And, let me be clear. When I say "in the midst of a very deep, deep sleep", I'm referring to her sleep. I would not characterize what was happening for Nicole or myself as "deep, deep sleep". I would more call it a painful, stressful, and endless exercise in sleep deprived frustration or the makings of a self help book entitled "How to Become Psychotic and Homicidal in Less than 3 Days".
And so it went until our trip(s) came to an end and we headed back home. Not only was it great to be back home after having travelled for so long, but it was also great because we were going to reclaim our bed and have the Little One in her own space again....at least, that was the plan. What actually happened, though, was that the crib, which at one point in time had looked so vastly huge that I thought we could actually lose that small, tiny creature in it, was now not big enough to house her and her night time buddies. In fact, she was no longer able to sleep through the night. Each and every night, she took at least 2 hours to fall asleep and then would wake up at random times during the night calling out for one of us and asking to sleep in our bed. Yeah. That's not going to happen. We have separate rooms for everyone's sanity. But, that sanity was now slipping through my fingers like a sardine on a slip and slide covered in vaseline. After about 3 weeks of limited and pathetically poor periods of interrupted sleep, we broke down and bought her a big girl bed. The thought was that the big girl bed would somehow miraculously restore our lives of restful, dreamlike slumber where the only thing waking me up was my own odoriferous flatulence in the middle of the night. Yeah. That was the plan. Again. That was the plan. The reality, however, was that she continued to not sleep through the night. She kept waking up. Crying. Asking for water. Whining. Asking for toys. Whimpering. Asking for books. Bawling. Asking to sleep "in that bed" ( meaning our bed meaning "hell no!"). Weeping. And, for the record, that's what Nicole and I were doing. Not RM. It was us. Why? BECAUSE WE WERE REALLY FREAKING TIRED!!! Have you ever been so sleep deprived that you could no longer put together a coherent thought? So sleep deprived you would try to say something and you would end up sounding like English was your 4th language? So sleep deprived that you couldn't answer any of the questions Elmo was asking you? Yes. Elmo talks to me. We're old personal friends. Don't judge...ok. judge. I don't care. I"m too freaking tired to care. I'm too freaking tired to think. I'm too freaking tired to think (as you can tell from this blog. Wait, I already said that). Ok. I'm going to go nap for a while until Night of the Living Dead rises in my house again.
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