10.26.2005
On hope, and miracles, and exhaustion
Yesterday, Julia had her immunizations. Poor baby. She was so wiped out by them. So wiped out, in fact, that come bedtime (for us) she let me put her in her crib.
I don't know if I've made this clear before, but Julia does not sleep unless someone is holding her. Oh, yeah, occasionally she will consent to rest in her swing. But this is not the norm, and we count on it at our peril. Because just as one is about to drift off to sleep with her in her swing, she will awaken, realize that she was cruelly tricked, and begin a vociferous complaint. If a mommie is holding a sleeping Julia, and that mommie would like to put Julia down in, say, her bassinette, or her crib, or her co-sleeper, that mommie has approximately 2 minutes to do whatever it was she needed to do (go to the bathroom, brush her teeth, balance her checkbook, check the dogs for ticks, re-grout the kitchen floor, whatever) before the betrayal is noticed. But we're working on it.
And last night, last night, she was so tired from being so darn ornery all day and she was so deeply asleep on my shoulder, I decided to put her in her crib and run back to bed. Kristin and I cuddled in bed together listening with the monitor to Julia's whistling booger (something that was bothering Kristin but to which I clung like a canary in a coal mine -- hey, at least we could tell she was still breathing) and kept saying, over and over:
Oh my god, she's sleeping in her crib.
I know, I know, she is totally sleeping in her crib.
Wow, can you believe that she is sleeping in her crib?
No, I so can't believe that she is sleeping in her crib.
Did you ever think that she would ever sleep in her crib all on her own without us crawling in there with her?
I mean, I dreamed about it, sure, but just like winning the lottery, I never thought it would really happen.
It's really happening, she is really sleeping in her crib.
We did this for 45 minutes. Then finally drifted off, still murmuring about the miracle of the crib, for a very refreshing 15 minutes, before Julia woke up to discover that she had been abandoned to the cold cruel world of her crib and began screaming.
And the screams came from everywhere because of the monitor. And she wouldn't close her eyes for more than a few seconds for the rest of the night. Everytime her little eyelids drifted closed, she would jerk them back open to look at me accusingly as if she could tell that I had been thinking right that very second about shirking my motherly duty and slipping her into her swing while she wasn't looking.
Read or Post a Comment
Poor Julia...or maybe, poor mommies!! Glad you got a few minutes of uninterrupted cuddling in--it's so very important. :) Does she typically sleep in the bed with you guys?
No, one of us generally sleeps in the club chair in the library with her. So that the non-duty mommy can get some sleep. We switch off shifts around 3-4 AM (the second feeding of the night) but this morning we had to leave the house so very very early to get Julia to grandma's house, so my shift in the bed was only supposed to be from 4 to 5, but I overslept till 6 and now I'm sitting here at work with dirty hair and a shirt covered in spit-up cause I was in too much of a rush to notice that this one had gotten splashed.
How funny. Charlie laid in his crib for eight minutes last night.
We've been talking about taking it down... because we'll never use it... it's just *there*... we store laundry in it and the cats hang out in it.
Anyway... he laid in it quite happily for eight minutes. But after that it was over. I tried to put him in it today to see if he would nap in it instead of me lying down with him to go to sleep, but he wouldn't have it. Apparently Julia got to him in the middle of the night and told him that if he fell asleep in it he would be abandoned. So I blame Julia. And you, for teaching her how to use the phone and telling her our phone number.
Oh my God. Really. I can't write anything else because you'll hate me. Suffice it to say that I cannot imagine how very very exhausted you must be. However, your blog seems as bright and alive as ever so you're hiding it quite well.
I hope Julia learns to love the crib soon. Perhaps more vigorous workouts during the day would help--have her run to the store for you, make lunch AND dinner, mow the lawn--you know, the reason we had babies!
Nat definitely prefered arms to cribs for a long time (sort of still does) and there were nights we had to break down and take turns letting her sleep on us. BUT the Amby Baby Hammock saved us many a night--80% of the time at least. And Nat was small, and still fits in her hammock. We have only started putting her in the crib again for naps this week.
I highly recommend. Google amby baby hammock and you can find it. Maybe even try ebay? It is worth EVERY penny.