24 December 2007
Princess Bed, Shmrincess Bed
Seven got a new bed.She had a bed, of course. It is and was a wonderful sturdy wooden bed with a lovely safety rail which could also be half of a set of bunkbeds if we had another one. It's an amazingly sturdy bed. It would withstand pretty much any natural disaster, and has done, if you count children climbing, jumping, wrestling, up-ending the mattress to make a fort, spilling various forbidden-to-be-in-the-bedroom type substances on it and not copping to it until, oh, months later, and so on. It's a household that includes three boys and one hoyden-princess, after all.
Where was I? Oh yes. So Seven had this wonderful bed, festooned with stuffed animals and comforters, waiting for her when we got back from China.
And all she's ever done on it is--well, see above.
Mom, MOM! is not a good Sleep Cop. The kids have phases where they insist they can't sleep in their own beds, their own rooms, "all alone" (the 67 other kids in the same room don't, evidently, count). In the last fifteen years, I have fallen asleep on trundles, kid beds, floors, chairs, and in my own bed with more elbows and knees and hard little kidskulls pummeling me for the whole 4.5 hours of "sleep" than could possibly belong to whatever astronomical number of kids had found their way there.
I can't stand the whole "let 'em cry it out" philosophy and its various off-shoots ("Ok. On the second night, set the timer for 5 minutes; go in and reassure the child when it goes off [meaning, incredibly, the timer, not the child--the child's been going off for a few hours probably] and then leave for ten minutes, etc., etc., blahblahblah . . "). It's not so much that I believe it doesn't (ever) work--many people I know swear by it. It's me. I can't do it. I was afraid of the dark my whole childhood (and truth to tell, I'm not that big a fan of it now either). I remember, viscerally, that sense of being about to be clutched at the back of my neck and running up the dark stairs convinced in my gut that Something Was Out There (that is to say, in here and about to get me).
So my Sleep Wimp status isn't grounded in a philosophy--though, like many great thinkers (ahem), I am perfectly capable of retrofitting one. But really, it just adds up to the fact that I can't make a child sleep. I can't make a child achieve a developmental milestone that s/he's not ready to achieve. I can't make a child believe that the dark is safe--even when it isn't dark (we own nightlights that orbiting astronauts could read by). Shoot, I can't even bribe them into any of that--and when Mom, MOM! comes up against an un-bribeable problem, she always cries Uncle (I could retrofit a philosophical justification to this one too, but you know basically what it'd look like so I'll spare you).
One day, One, at the age of eleven, just suddenly stopped having sleep problems. (Then she started again, becoming a teenage nightowl, but that's another post.) Two stopped when she was maybe seven. I'm not sure I ever stopped--I can't, for example, sleep in hotels and though I always say it's the noise, it isn't. I'm just scairt--in that same irrational, ridiculous, and intractible way I was scared of the dark stairwell.
Meanwhile, the twin bed with safety railing seems to have temporarily solved Four's sleep problems, and Seven loves, loves, loves, her new Princess Bed. Every night, she makes sure it has all of her 2,345 toddler bed sized blankies and lovies smoothly and mathematically arranged thereon. And the water bottle Mom, MOM! cleverly strapped to the guard rail to ward off 5,618 nighttime drink-of-water orders. And the 3,267 Beanie Baby whatsises (doggies named Doggie; kitties named Kitty; pandas named--well, you get the idea).
What it doesn't have every night, after the 100 watt room light goes off and the 3000 watt read-the-fine-print-by-it-while-in-orbit Spongebob Squarepants "night" light goes on, is an occupant.
Princess Seven is fast asleep, all right, but she's over here, kneading Mom, MOM!'s fleshy parts with all her 17 elbows and 32 knees and snoring like a truckdriver with sleep apnea.
And it's anybody's guess how many other elbows and knees will be joining them, this night and the next, and the next, and the next........
And I am (*ow!*) just (*ouf!*) fine (*yow*) with that. They're only kids for a little while. I can sleep later.
In, ah, fourteen years or so.
And I am (*ow!*) just (*ouf!*) fine (*yow*) with that. They're only kids for a little while. I can sleep later.
In, ah, fourteen years or so.
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Oh, man, I can SO identify with this. Right now I seem to spend more time "sleeping" in the 3 year old's room, sharing his twin bed, than I do in my own! One more reason to get a new mattress for my bed before the new 3 year old comes home--I'll move the old mattress (queen size, mind you!) to their room. At least there'll be room for two 3 year olds AND me...
This too shall pass. And someday we'll miss the knees and elbows, right??
Blessings,
Jennifer K
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This too shall pass. And someday we'll miss the knees and elbows, right??
Blessings,
Jennifer K
# posted by 
: 4:33 PM
: 4:33 PM 
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