I just love this . . .

So I nurse my babies to sleep. You’ve likely already caught on to it. With Isaac I was all quiet about it, fearing judgment from the “You must lay your baby down awake!!” camp. When Hannah was a baby I did all this reading on how babies are designed (well, the book says “evolved,” but I have no problem overlooking that when their conclusions are based on how babies presently operate), and I came to the conclusion that babies are made to fall asleep nursing, so who am I to argue with or work against God’s design? I suppose you could make the argument that their proclivity to fall asleep nursing is a consequence of the Fall, but good luck with that. The fact of the matter is there are all sorts of hormonal things going on–for mama and baby–that put a baby to sleep at the breast. Sounds like design to me. Actually, it sounds like a gift to me.

So, I’m no longer quiet about my nursing-to-sleep habit. It’s easy. It’s nice and cozy. (it allows for lots of internet surfing while NAKing) It’s effective. And, did I mention it’s easy? You just have to sit there and hold a warm, cozy, mama-lovin’ creature, breathing deeply in a darkened room. Sigh. Heaven.

There’s a moment in this nursing to sleep thing that I absolutely love. Isaac was and Ruth is great at it. Hannah with all her refluxy issues, not so much. The baby or toddler (and, who are we kidding, a toddler is a baby. But that’s a whole nother post.) falls off to blissful sleep, nursing away. You slip her off and pick her up. She stirs a bit, but she’s flat-out asleep. You gently lay her down in her crib. And then she does it. The sweetest thing. She rolls over onto her belly, sticking her diapered bottom straight up in the air. In our house it’s accompanied by scrunching up a blanky underneath the belly. Curled in a hump, blissful sleeep. Sigh. So nice. So so very nice. Look. Isn’t it nice?

Musical Beds, Part 2. Where the Musical Beds part comes in.

So I started the last blog by entitling it. Musical Beds. I had a particular trajectory in mind. And then I got to writing. You know, the whole stream-of-consciousness thing. I got to the end of a thought, hit publish and went on my merry way. It was a drive-by blogging. I didn’t have time to do any writing, but I was sneaking some in anyway. And that’s where it got me. A title that has almost nothing to do with the post. I say almost nothing because I do mention the word bed in the post. So I’m thinking I’m sacrificing quantity for quality. The Blog Stats beginning to look less like an EKG report is making me all frantic: must. write. another. post. must write another post, mustwriteanotherpost!! Mustn’t let that little blue line drop back to zero. Must. Not.

So, where does that get me? Posts like the last one where the title is irrelevant because my train changed directions unexpectedly and I never went back and revisited the travel itinerary. It hit me like, well, a freight train while I was on my way home from Ruth’s well-child visit. “I never talked about Musical Beds!!”

Now. Let’s try again . . .

So here’s how our nights have been going around here lately. Hannah’s been getting up again. I think Isaac’s been giving her ideas. Or, his getting up leaves her “all awone” up there, the gravest of tragedies in Hannah’s life. I already explained Isaac’s situation. And Ruthie is now working on acquiring her canine teeth, so she’s been waking up much more too.

This all makes for some interesting nights. Here we go: Ry and I start out in our bed alone. At some point, Ruthie wakes up, Ry goes in and changes her diaper because she will not tolerate my changing her diaper in the middle of the night. She knows The Daddy is not good for much else in the night, so she tolerates him. Screaming all the way, but not writhing and kicking as she does to me, knowing I’m holding out the good stuff on her. Ry gets back in bed as I take Ruth from him to nurse her. Most times she goes right back to sleep, sometimes it takes a little bit. Then I get back in our bed. Unless. Unless Isaac has joined us in our bed in the meantime. Then there’s no room left for me and I head up to Isaac’s bed. Then, occasionally, Hannah goes downstairs and joins Ry and Isaac there.

There are many variations on this. Isaac shows up before Ruthie wakes up, but then there’s no room to return to the bed. Isaac shows up after Ruthie wakes up, he stays with us, unless Ry gets to feeling squished and then he goes up to Isaac’s bed. Then sometimes Hannah has come down and joined Isaac and me and I end up as part of a cozy mommy sandwich, with a child squished up against either side of me. Neither Ry nor I seem very aware of what’s going on through all this. We try to piece it all together in the morning:

“How did I end up all alone upstairs in Isaac’s bed? I thought I went to Hannah’s bed?”

“Well, Hannah started crying, so you went up and lay down with her. A little while later Isaac came down and lay down with me. Then Ruthie woke up and I went upstairs and asked you to go change her, so you got out of Hannah’s bed, changed Ruthie, and then when you went back upstairs you must have lain down in Isaac’s bed. Sometime after that Hannah came downstairs and climbed in with me and made a mommy sandwich.”

“Oh. I just remember getting into Hannah’s bed.”

Musical beds. Last one sleeping when the sun comes up WINS!!

Musical Beds

*yawn*

We were soooo close to sleeping through the night, Ry and me. Soo close. We kicked Ruthie into her own bedroom and she’s been sleeping great ever since. Hannah had stopped getting up in the night for the first time ever. But Isaac. Poor Isaac. He who had slept so well, so long. No longer. I fear it’s the scary attic. Last time I wrote about it I made it sound all sweet. And it was all sweet. Was being the operative word there. Now. Now it’s just exhausting. And mildly frustrating.

Frustrating on two levels. On the one hand there’s the fact that we used to be able to just leave him after singing some songs and praying. His eyes would be opened, he’d be in the nice relaxed zone to just drift off. He’s never been good about falling asleep with someone in the room with him. But now. Now we need to stay with him until he’s completely asleep. Totally asleep. In fact, two nights ago I came downstairs after his eyes were closed and he was all twitchy and five minutes later he comes down saying, “Where did you go? I wasn’t expecting you to be gone already.” GAH!

On the other hand is the mere fact that he’s afraid of something that doesn’t exist. Last night he told me the monster in the storage space melts into the floor when the light goes on, but comes back up when the light is off. I just want to screech out: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MONSTERS!!!! But I know that doesn’t help. Poor, poor boy. I’m trying to be patient. I am. But last night I failed miserably.

Praise be to God, today is another day. A day to face it fresh. To come up with a new solution. And to remember that the poor boy is only six. He’s still so little. Even if he is so huge, especially compared to his sisters. He’s only six. And he’ll only be six for such a short time. Ry and I really should relish the extra snuggles we’re getting out of it, because they’re only going to diminish over time. We really should. And we will try.

And thankfully. Thankfully, I have my new best friend. My new love. My new addiction. Yep. Back to the coffee. And it almost really is coffee now. Just some sugar and half-and-half. Ok, 3 sugars and a bunch of half-and-half. But less sugar this week than last. But not BLACK like my curmudgeonly friend insists.