BIG GIRL BED

With so much going on lately, I haven’t had time to write.

Well, technically I suppose I should say I haven’t had time to Blog. (Is that a verb?) I have actually been writing, but mostly magazine articles and a large personal history sort of thing which is part of a certification course. So, while I have been writing, I haven’t been writing here.

Work has been on and off busy, as well. And while I really do like the two weeks on, two weeks off schedule, during the "on" weeks I have time for little else in the evenings.

But, here I am again, finally.

I’ve been thinking about transitions lately….

As with all things, I tend to see reality as a metaphor for… well, reality. (Everything isn’t like everything else – everything is everything else.) Perhaps the older I get the more perspective I am able to have, but I am often struck these days at how the only constant is change. Nothing stays the same for two moments running, and just as soon as there seems to be a pattern to life, something changes and the pattern shifts.

Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. Rather, it’s just a thing. Maybe, too, I get this perspective because I spend a good deal of my time caring for an ever-changing, quickly developing small child who is never the same from one day to the next.

This is very cool. I had no idea how fascinating it would be to watch an actual human being becoming herself. I’ve always known people after they were already who they were, have always visited the house (so to speak) after it was mostly built. But now I get to see everything from the foundation up and am very well aware of just how much I effect that foundation.

This is why it just kills me that so many parents treat their children so badly. I mean, when they are little is the time when they form all of their basic perceptions and beliefs about the world around them – don’t parents realize this?

I read a quote which I will paraphrase since I don’t remember it verbatim: How you speak to your children becomes their inner voice.

Yep, too true. Do parents really want their children to grow up with voices in their heads telling them that they’re worthless, inconvenient, stupid, etc., etc.? Or is that just the inner voice of the parent coming out, put there years ago by their own parents, etc., etc.?

Bleh. Okay, I’ll stop before I start depressing myself.

Where was I? Oh yes – transitions. We are going through several of them right now though really I suppose that is no different from any other particular right now. If nothing ever changed, then what on earth would I write about?

Recently, it was decided that we needed more room to sleep. For fifteen months my daughter had slept curled up in my arms, which was absolutely fantastic, but now we needed more space.

When she was younger, if she moved in her sleep at all, it was almost always because she was about to awaken and want to nurse. This instinctively roused me out of sleep, and since my services were about to be needed, made sense.

Then, she became a toddler and began an ongoing ballet of Nocturnal Gymnastics throughout part of every night. Every ten minutes she would flip over, shove her head between the pillows, flop onto my stomach, shove her foot into her father’s armpit, fling her arm across my face, sit up and fall over with her head facing the foot of the bed, etc., etc..

While this was absolutely adorable, it also meant that I was waking up twenty times every night, and for no good reason other than to mentally note which crazy position she was sleeping in now. Eventually, one of those times I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep which was not a good thing for someone who needed to chase a toddler all day long.

She, on the other hand, was sound asleep for the entire twelve hours she was in bed, which meant she would have LOTS of energy when she inevitably awoke well before I was ready to. Not that she is an early riser… noon is plenty late to awaken for a youngster I am told, but when I haven’t really fallen asleep until after eight in the morning, noon seems unnaturally early.

As much as I love to cuddle with her, I was getting severely exhausted.

To be fair, if there was anything that ever woke her up during the night, it was me. I drink A LOT of fluids throughout the day, and because of that, I get up several times per night. About every third time my movement would disrupt her enough to awaken her, which was not okay as far as she was concerned.

Her father, on the other hand, wasn’t disturbed by me getting in and out of bed or her nighttime dance routine. Though he is aware of her while he sleeps, he never really wakes up unless she starts to make noise. If she does that, it means she is actually waking up and will probably need something. In this matter, I will definitely admit that his instincts are more appropriate to the situation.

So, we’ve expanded the bedroom. Now, it is a Bed Room, meaning that it is a room full of bed. We put a twin sized mattress next to our queen, and in a few months will add the co-sleeper to the opposite side of the big bed. Once this is accomplished, we will have a room with bookcases against the walls, a huge perpetual bed in the middle with narrow walkways in between.

It really is quite cozy and I’ve always had dreams of a HUUUUUGE bed. We have all of the mattresses on the floor so that if she falls out, she doesn’t have far to go. There is also a bed rail on her bed for her to run into while she’s pirouetting around in the night, and thus far it has been pretty effective in keeping her contained.

Since my partner is undisturbed by movement in the night, he now sleeps in the middle. If she needs something during the night, she crawls onto Daddy’s chest and demands yogurt.

This all works out quite nicely, especially with another sibling on the way. Though I found nursing at night to work out very well with an infant, I’m not sure if I could deal with two nurslings all night long. During the day is one thing, but sometime during the night, I would really like to sleep. If the oldest is used to going to Dad for food during the night, that only leaves one for Mom to deal with.

So, really, it all works out best for everyone.

Ah, but listen to all of these justifications… Yes, I’m trying to hide the fact that it was me who had a difficult time with the transition. It is always expected that the toddler will fuss when something changes, will be upset if Mom isn’t right there where she’s supposed to be in the middle of the night.

Not so.

For one thing, she actually seemed excited about the new arrangement. We arranged the room while she was downstairs playing with Grandma and only brought her up once it was all finished. She immediately dove into her new bed, rolled around and bonded with the stuffed lady bug that my partner had teased me for getting.

I really did have to laugh at myself…

I have several books about co-sleeping, and one of the things that they often discuss is making a new bed "special" for a child if you’d like them to start sleeping in it. Usually this is in the context of moving them into their own room, but nevertheless I took the advice to heart.

Of course, in truth I wasn’t really doing that for her as much as I was doing it for myself. I found an adorable hand-quilted comforter and pillow sham, color coordinated sheets and a stuffed lady bug pillow to match. Even though he chuckled at me at the time, my partner now concedes that the lady bug was a good purchase since she sleeps with her arm around it and drags it all over the bed in the morning.

The first night, I nursed her to sleep in her new bed then crawled over to my side as my partner climbed into the middle. The two of them immediately drifted off to sleep and I looked forward to a quiet night without disruption.

But alas…

My Mommy Instinct kept interrupting me every time I started to doze. A little subconscious voice kept saying "Baby too far away – surely wolves will eat her" whenever I started to nod off.

Ten, twenty, thirty times that first night I kept involuntarily sitting up in bed to look over at her to make sure that she was all right, which of course she always was. I never consciously chose to sit up, but rather would just find myself that way every time I started to drift into sleep.

Other than the fact that I still didn’t get any sleep, it was actually quite amusing. I had to laugh at the observation that my toddler was way more ready to deal with separation (oh yeah – a whole three feet) than I was. I can’t imagine how I would handle moving her to another room… would I just start involuntarily sleep walking all night long? I can just see me pacing back and forth, back and forth, black and blue bags under my eyes, all night long….

I have, thankfully, adjusted to the new arrangement and both she and I are awakened much less often now. She also seems to appreciate the added space and sprawls with even more abandon than she did when she was lodged in between my partner and I.

And, first thing in the morning (if you can call noon morning) she wakes up, looks around, smiles and says "Mom!" Then she grabs her lady bug in one hand, crawls over to where I’m sleeping and cuddles up to me.

It really is wonderful.

So, I think I’m finally getting used to the Big Girl Bed, though it did take me a little while. It was a transition in time and space, one which was beneficial and necessary. I am sorry to see her go, though it was obvious that she and I both needed more room. And we are still just as close as ever – perhaps more so now that we are both better rested everyday and can enjoy each other’s company even more.

Though she has her own Big Girl Bed, she is still my little girl. While some things transition, others stay the same.