Another Birthday

Michael and I were up really late last night in parent-time, like, midnight. When Michael realized what time it was, he wished me a happy Mother's Day. I went to bed with a smile, excited to see what awaited me in the morning.

I waited 15 minutes and Oliver was awake screaming like a banshee. Michael, the valiant husband out to give his wife a break, got up. Three times in a row. Replaced the nuk, cuddled and rocked, tummy-patted, forehead-stroked...I think he would have dipped the nuk in Bourbon if he hadn't been too tired to saunter downstairs to the party closet.

It was no use. I'm afraid that I'm to blame for creating a monster. When a nuk-replacement isn't enough, Oliver is now strong and old enough to pull up to kneeling; he stares at the door and screams. Lifts his hands out as if his crib was made of sinking sand. Oh, the despair. I am full of despair, too, for this scene usually occurs just as I have dropped off into the deepest first cycle of REM sleep. And I confess that after a meager two or three times, I pick the screaming child up, and bring him to bed with me.

Awful, awful, I know. This goes agaist every help-your-kid-sleep book, spits in the face of every child sleepologist. Your child needs to learn to calm himself. Yep, I totally agree. But there's never a good time for Oliver to learn this with terrifying scream fits. In my sleep-stupor, I come to the revelation every night that either nobody in this house sleeps, or everybody in this house sleeps. Unhappy or happy. Not functional for the week or semi-funcitonal. I choose the second option and pull him into bed. (And because I'm a pediatric nurse, I feel the need to add that I place safeguards at the edges of the bed ans place him so he can't fall off or roll unless he decides to suddenly learn how to stand on a mattress, design an escape route and gently tiptoe away without waking me). And then something beautiful happens: we sleep.

Sigh...I let him try the self-calming thing last night. After a 1/2 hour, that amazing husband of mine (who would have been able to fall asleep had it not been for me poking him every two minutes: "I just don't know what to do! Don't you hear him screaming?") went in the room. He came back after Oliver was quiet.

"How did he seem? Was he okay? Was he a disaster when you went in?"

Michael didn't answer right away. My anxiety grew even though the screams had dissapated.

"He was a mess, wasn't he?"

"Well, he was sitting at the back of the crib, screaming. He looked...scared."

Angry, frustrated, tired, all of this I can handle. The fact that I shut the door on my child in the dark, leaving him to sit up and stare out in fear, this I cannot deal with.

I fell asleep, 15 minutes later to be awakened again. I walked in with drowsy resolve, looked at those hands reaching out to me, and picked him up. We went to bed and slept.

This Mother's Day was a sleepy one, and I am going to bed tonight with trepidation. I work in the morning. I am not confident in my parenting skills tonight. But I am going to bed with lovely visions from the day. Mother's Day today felt like another birthday for me. Michael woke us up with our favorite tradition of hot cocoa and doughnuts in bed, and handed Oliver a card to give me. I got a frame that Oliver colored with marker streaks, bordering a collage of pictures of my baby, that he made, ahem, all by himself at daycare. We ate our sugar breakfast, Oliver had his first taste of a doughnut, and we giggled and played in our pajamas for an hour. It was almost as if last night had never happened. Almost.

Good night, for now...