It was 9 a.m. My children had been tucked into bed one hour before. I sat down on the couch (sigh) and the phone rang. It was my girlfriend. Exactly one minute into our conversation her 3-year-old daughter began calling
It was 9 a.m. My children had been tucked into bed one hour before. I sat down on the couch (sigh) and the phone rang.
It was my girlfriend.
Exactly one minute into our conversation her 3-year-old daughter began calling her from her bedroom. She wanted her mom to come lay with her as she fell asleep.
I listened to my friend explain in that calm with a-hint-of-frantic voice us mothers use when our children have pushed us past the point of irritation and into exhaustive overload, that her daughter had to go to sleep herself.
As soon as their conversation ended, my 3-year-old showed up in the family room.
“I’m scared,” she said.
For nearly four years, my daughter slept safe and sound in her crib.
I know, I know. She is way too old to be sleeping in a crib. But it was so easy. And she never climbed out.
Part of it was that I wasn’t ready to let “my baby” be old enough to sleep in a big-girl bed. The diapers, pacifiers, cradle, bottles and stroller have all been given or tucked away.
My baby is in preschool and learning to write her name. It was time we got rid of her crib, too.
But this last piece of her infancy was difficult for me to take down, especially since I was never really given the choice with my boys.
My oldest was in a twin bed by the time he was 14 months old. He had to. His brother needed the crib.
My husband literally took matters into his own hands when my second son was 2.
Knowing that the time to move my little boy out of his crib was coming, I had been admiring a much-too-expensive navy blue bedroom set from Pottery Barn. My crafty husband declared he could build and paint the exact same bed for much less money.
I took the boys up north for vacation and my husband built the bed. It was finished by the time we got home.
This time, with my last child, she literally had to ask us for a big-girl bed. We made arrangements with my parents to pick up the antique white bed that was once my childhood bed from their house.
“I so excited,” she told my mother when she and my husband went to get it.
At nearly 4, I figured my daughter would have an ultra-smooth transition to her new bed. The first night there were a few tears, until my 7-year-old climbed in bed with her to comfort her.
I expected it to end there.
I was wrong.
Every night since the big move, my daughter has gotten out of bed at least five or six times a night. She goes into her brothers’ rooms to irritate them. She comes down to tell me a story about her day at the baby sitter’s, or to tattle on one of her brothers.
Her latest trick is to tell me she is scared.
After about 15 minutes of holding the phones to our ears, listening to each other reprimand our children about going to bed, my girlfriend and I gave up on having a conversation.
She went to lay with her daughter. I went to escort mine back to her room.
Funny, I thought, all this work and fuss to give our kids the appropriate sleeping arrangements and spaces. But all they want to do is stay up, and all we want to do is sleep.
• Mommy Talk is written by reporter Marci Laehr Tenuta. Reporter Mike Moore writes Daddy Talk. Their columns can be found online at: www.journaltimes.com/mom
