As I may have mentioned, our nights have not been so peaceful. V. does the Frug in her sleep, and I bolt upright because I'm re-running episodes from the office. Then I wake up Adinah, who wakes Anette, etc. etc. Sometimes home is like the WestBahnhof--with all the coming, the going, delayed trains and the resulting angry commuters in their pink princess pajamas.
Anette, being who she is, has come up with a solution. A new ideal for living, if you will. It's called Mattress Wonderland: we put all our mattresses together on the floor of our bedroom, then we all sleep together there, on this ocean of PermaRest. Adinah doesn't have to sleep by herself in her room anymore, V. feels more integrated and surrounded by her new family, and each night, one lucky adult can escape out to a more remote snooze location if necessitated by snoring, howling or somnambulent kicks in the groin.
I was a bit hesitant about the idea at first, and not just because it means the wife and I will have to find another place to make whoopy. But I gave in, and tonight will be our third night in Mattress Wonderland.
V. still wakes up at 3, 4 and 5:30 am (or 1, 3 and 4 am) but she's getting better at falling asleep again, especially after you rub her back or stroke her hair. Adinah sleeps through everything and hasn't had another nightmare. It's even been relatively peaceful for Anette and I, though one of us is usually sleeping somewhere else by dawn. Oh well.
She Who Must be Obeyed says the ultimate goal is that we'll eventually cede our bedroom to the girls,and make what has been Adinah's room into our own cozy little Sex Nook. The former New Yorker in me thinks, "Whoa, we've got a huge beautiful bedroom--no way am I giving that up to two little rugrats with too many stuffed animals." So I'm gonna put my foot down.
So far, putting my foot down has always gotten me what I wanted from Anette. Like that time I put my foot down and insisted we wouldn't have another kid. Or that day I insisted we move to Japan so I can pursue my dream of becoming the guy in the Godzilla suit who gets to destroy Tokyo over and over again everyday.
Yeah, that's right. I am Man. Hear me roar.
2 comments:
Effective parenting calls for thinking outside the box... er, bed. Take the high road not because you feel you have to, but because co-sleeping's been proven to lowers anxiety & promotes higher self-esteem in children. What parent wouldn't want that?
And the next time you're fending off kidney shots or glancing blows to the gonads (gonad. now there's a word you don't see everyday) by cute little toddler tootsies, try to keep in mind the tao of parenting... this too shall pass.
Yes, there WILL come a point when they don't actually want to sleep near you (or talk to you, said the mother of teens). Bummer about the big lovely room though...I'd want to keep it too.
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