8.30.2006
Not that I want to jinx it or anything...
I ride the commuter light-rail train into downtown. During the summer I always got a seat. It was nice. Now there're all these college students sitting on their butts taking um MY seats. Can't they DRIVE to school like ordinary, no-thought-on-the-future teenagers? I mean, sheesh!
Ok, I'm kidding. But I do find myself getting absurdly resentful of the college students on my train. I never claimed to be a good person.
But I got a seat this morning. It was miracle, I tell you. See, I got on and hung on to one of the straps and noticed that my ass was right in this woman's face. So I turned around and then her face was right in my crotch. No, normally having a woman's face in my crotch would not bother me, but, well, hmm, not this one. Just... no. Not that one. Anyway, because I like to take an awkward moment and make it excruciating, I started talking to her. I started talking to her about my toddler's sleep problems. Or, rather, I started talking to her about my problems with my toddler's sleep habits. I told her all about the sleeping in a chair for the first 5 months, and the reflux, and the boppie, and the losing of the boppie, and the swing, and the having to sleep in the guest bed, and the crying fits when placed in the crib (even in a solid sleep) and about how just last friday we tried the crib again and again and again and again and the baby just would not have it and how depressed I got thinking that I would never again be able to sleep without a little foot in my kidneys and a little fist curled in my hair (and PULLING! my god, the pulling!) but how last night she actually let us put her in her crib and she slept there for 7.5 hours. And it was at this point that the woman (who had been making umhum, and uhhuh noises while staring just slightly lower than where my belt buckle would have been) got up and left (I was just making that staring at my crotch part up, by the way). And I got her seat! How cool is that? I never thought of boring people away so I could sit down. I mean, sure, it might have been her stop and all, but I'm pretty sure I saw her get back on the train the next car down. And here I thought she was interested.
But that's not the important part of this story. The important part of this story is that
Julia slept in her crib all night. ALL NIGHT. IN HER CRIB.
And it was my night on duty, too!
At one point I woke up and realized that it was 5 AM and she hadn't started to cry yet, and I feared that she had died of SIDS in the night (run over the contents of her crib in my head: no pillow, but there was a blanket. No stuffed animals, but there was a stuffed book. I THINK the crib is safe) I thought about running to her to make sure she was still breathing. But then I decided that if she was dead, she was dead, and I might as well catch some sleep while I can and deal with it in the morning.
Ok, I didn't really think that. I realized that she was most likely alive and that if I rushed in there to check on her I would most likely wake her up and ruin all the good that had just occurred. So I made myself go back to sleep.
The weird thing is that we JUST TRIED THIS on Friday. I tried putting her in her crib 6 times on Friday evening. The moment her little butt would hit the crib mattress she started screaming like I pulling her fingernails out. Not that I have ever pulled her fingernails out, but you know what I mean. Even my tearful begging could not get her to be happy in her crib. But then Monday was Julia's 12 month check up. And the doctor told Kristin (and Julia, since she was right there) that for Julia's sake we needed to get her out of the swing. (well, duh!) And that we were no longer to give her formula bottles at night. And the doctor sympathized with our not wanting Julia in our bed anymore because she can't get her own toddler out of her bed, either.
So then Monday night Julia allowed herself to be put in the crib for the first part of the night. But she'd had shots that day, so she wasn't feeling well and she ended up in bed with us around 1 am. Still, the fact that she slept in her crib for part of the night at all was impressive! And then last night.
Do you think she understood the doctor and that's why she's allowing the change? Cause it's just SO coincidental!
Wait, where are you going? This can't possibly be your stop. NO ONE gets off at 9th south! HEY!!! Don't leave on my account! I'll stop talking so you can admire my crotch in peace...
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Hey congratulations! I hope this is the start to a good thing for you guys, and that it is not just a coincidence.
Your crotch is ambrosia, of this I'm certain, and I'm not even gay.
My daughter and you seem to be in the same boat. Both of us believe in and support co-sleeping for as long as the child seems to need it. Daughter's seeming to have a more difficult time transitioning my grandson (1 yr on Sept 18) to the crib than I had transtitioning her or two of her three siblings.
Yes, I know, zero population growth limits me to two children, but color me Selfish Bitch, I have four, and a stepson, and I've got two miscarriages under my belt. Digressing again.
I'm sure daughter and her boyfriend would like to be making love again. I'm sure they would like to be sleeping in the same bed together, bruise-free. But my grandson is reluctant. He wails; she or daddy pacifies.
I know you are not in favor of CIO. I was never big on it either, until the third child just wouldn't crib, insisting on continuing co-sleeping with her incessant, brain-melting, midnight wailing even until I was 7 mos pregnant with the fourth, having visions of being sandwiched between two babies and never making love with my husband again. I sucked it up one night when husband was away, and let her cry it out, and all it took was that one night. Two months later, I was co-sleeping with her sister. Not sure if I got laid in those two months in between, but I sure got some good sleep.
In retrospect, I wonder about my reluctance to let my children cry. I was always so ready to comfort and assuage and make everything all better; I breastfeed them all to the point of being a human pacifier.
My eldest was in addiction treatment at age 15. Her brother hasn't turned to drugs, but body-builds addictively. It isn't until the third child (age 13), the child I made Cry It Out, that the addiction pattern seems not to be there. Fourth child (age 11) comfort-eats and is the only child who runs overweight for her height -- I could never let her Cry It Out, because her sister would have been kept awake, too.
I'll never know whether or not my inclination to sooth was misguided, but I do wonder. Hell, I look at today's immediate gratification-demanding youth in general and wonder if they weren't created in part through on-demand breastfeeding.
But then, the way it was done in the '50s --formula feedings given on a strict schedule -- seems so brutal, so counterintuitive; so unlike anything anybody else in the animal kingdom does.
If I had to do it all over again, I would still choose to go primitive, to practice monkey-love, to nurse on demand and co-sleep as long as the child needs it. And in the end, I would still wonder: was it service or disservice?
It's a pitfall of the ability to reason.
Some days, I'd rather be a monkey, if only because monkeys seem to ask fewer questions of themselves -- but we don't even know that for sure.
Good luck, by the way, with this round of clomid. I understand it's a very difficult treatment for many women. My ex's wife has had a very difficult time with clomid, and no resutls.
My stepson's mom is gay, and she has said that she and her wife would like to have a child together one day. I hope they do. They're wonderful women and wonderful parents to my stepson, and I can understanf their wanting a child that they conceive together in spirit, however it may come about physically.
That's great, tulip britches, but hang on a second.
A stuffed BOOK?! Are you kidding me? A book toy. Like a stuffed animal, but a book? That is so nerdy. Does the book have words or is it cartoon toy book? Are the pages stuffed? How do you stuff pages?
I want one.
I think things are looking up for you!
Yahoo! What great news! Hmmm... that would also be the night that Charlie slept through the night for, oh, the fourth time in his life. Do you think they were using that freaky baby telepathy to communicate?
And AJ's mom did the same thing when she slept through the night the first time. The immediate "oh my god, she's dead" followed by "well, she'll still be dead in three hours" before going back to sleep. Mean mommies ;)
I am ever jealous of the woman on the train and I would have listened to you read a phone book if I had that view ;)
Woohoo... Congrats!!! I hope things continue to progress for you.