Two Secrets

Little Bug's medication has messed with his sleep, and although we are no longer a closet co-sleeping family, most nights lately I have ended up in his bed at some point in the night.  He isn't a cuddler in the traditional sense, but he always has to be touching me with his feet.  Sometimes it is just his tiny toes against my thighs, and sometimes he burrows both his feet as far in between my legs as he can.

Secret #1: I will sometimes move slightly away from his touch just to have the lovely heart-melty feeling when his feet immediately follow me for contact again.

Secret #2: I adore the nights when I get to cuddle with my sleepy baby boy.  Screw the sleep training.

The Great Debate

What came first, the fussy children or the cranky mom?

I'd like to think that my mood over the last 3 days can be blamed on my sons.  They are both going through some "emotionally fragile" phases due to the fact that they are toddlers and can't regulate their emotions.

Unlike their 30-year-old mother, who certainly can, but has chosen not to.

My kids have been all sorts of naughty, loud, grumpy, defiant, and generally annoying as hell the last couple days, but what I realized is that my sour, cranky, tense mood could perhaps be exacerbating, if not causing the higher level of...passionate expression...in our home.  Kids can tap in and feed off emotions, especially those of their parents, and perhaps my mood isn't really due to my kids, but my choice to eat less healthy and get less sleep the last few days, thus causing my kids' moods to devolve into toddler nastiness.  When we wake up in the mornings, who is the first one to frown lately.

I'm betting it's been me.

So tonight I apologized to my sons for causing what has been a relatively unfun and stressful few days and promised to try harder tomorrow.  One said "I waaab ooo, mama" and the other gave me a silly grin from behind his bottle.

And tomorrow, I really will try harder.

Sleep Training

You know sleep training isn't going well when you child comes trotting out of his room at 11:45 pm with his stuffed Donald Duck and a book declaring "All done, nap!"

My exact reply: "Oh, hell no."

Baby Bird

When I am sleepy I either get sassy or sappy. Last night it was sappy.

As I laid in bed last night with Little Bug (after he had ended up back in our bed) nestled in between Appa and I, I got to thinking about nests.

Yes, like a bird's nest. Because when I am sleepy and sassy or sappy, I am also mildly delusional.

Little Bug is the sweetest, most horrible bed mate. He flips and turns and burrows into you. He wants nothing more than to be cuddled up against you and will usually push Appa off the bed at night from attempting to get closer and closer to him. Last night, though, he seemed pretty peaceful in his little dinosaur jammies. He alternated between spooning me while his hand rested on his dada and resting his head in the crook of Appa's arm while his little toes burrowed into my side.

In my sleepy/sappy state I imagined him protected safely in a little nest we had made for him, protected from cold and monsters and everything else in the world. Then I started thinking about all the other times I make a "nest" for him. The way I wrap my arms around him as he sits in my lap, the way his beloved raggies nest around him each night as he sleeps, each one touching some part of his face or hands or feet. The whole thing seemed so warm and cozy and idealic. Such a lovely thing for a child to experience.

Such a lovely thing for me to experience him experiencing.

I love being a mama bird.

A Peek Inside at 2:45

What does a 3 year old think about at 2:45 in the morning when he doesn't feel like sleeping?

Santa, reindeer, choo choos, bounce houses, school, mama and dada's bed, Good Night Moon, Bee Bim Bop (the book and the food), Obama (grandma), his brother, an elephant, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, fire trucks, buses, and an advent calendar with M&Ms.

It was fascinating and horrible all at once to listen to my son jabber happily away about whatever was on his mind....for 5 hours in the middle of the night.

Fighting the Skeletons

When I was very young, I had a dream that my dad and grandpa were outside my bedroom window fighting skeletons. The dream was so vivid that I can still, some 25+ years later, recall in detail everything from the thin but strong look of the skeleton bones to the color of my bedroom carpet and the way the moon shone into the window.

Ever since that dream, I have had a nervous twitch at night. Even as a high school student, I would be comforted by the sounds of my parents still awake in our home as I fell asleep. (My dad has stress-induced insomnia like I do, so he would often be up very late). It's silly, I know, but hearing the TV or couch shift was the tiny trigger I needed to release my tension and feel safe. My parents were my protectors simply by being there.

Last night as I laid in bed with Little Bug, I realized that I have somehow become the protector. It's me that his hand is seeking out for a single confirmation stroke as he drifts in and out of sleep. I'm the one whose touch can ease his moans. My presence in a room is what he wants and needs when he wakes up scared in the middle of the night after what could have been a truly cracked out dream about skeletons.

Just by being there and being me, I'm protecting him.

That so much responsibility that it humbles me and makes me want to be stronger and smarter and better for him. It makes me feel like a superhero who could totally kick skeleton butt (if they had butts, which they don't).

It makes me feel so lucky to be his mom.

Eye of the Tiger

Today is a day I have been dreading and preparing for during the last 2 years. Little Bug is set to lose all his therapists when he turns 3 next month and will be getting his services from our local school district (and we're lucky we had the foresight to move into a good district). I'm completely freaked about him losing his excellent ST and PT, but that is for a different day.

Today he gets evaluated by the schools for what services he qualifies for. Our hope and belief is that he should qualify for the excellent half day, language intensive preschool program where an ST and PT will see him during his time there. It's a good school, perfect for almost all his needs (minus the smaller focus on PT), and it fits with our schedule. He can do mornings there and they will bus him directly to his normal school for the afternoon.

However, based on his PT evaluation of 15-18 months (Little Bug is almost 3), as misleading as it is, they want to put him in this really intense one-on-one program for severely disabled children. I'm against that because I don't think that is what he needs, nor do I think removing his social and independent components would be beneficial. Plus, with the full day schedule (full school day, not full work day), we would have to pull him out completely from his normal school...and I would have to quit my job to be there in the mornings and afternoons.

If this is what he needed, I would be on board in a heartbeat. But as his mother, I know it is not. Last time I checked, the only one who has a PhD in Little Bug was me.

I've been going round and round with them because they only see this one number on his paperwork, not HIM. If they saw him, I know they would see he is not a child who needs these wonderful, but inappropriate resources. To help this process, Appa and I decided to set Little Bug up for complete success. We scheduled an early bedtime and canceled all his therapy today.

Because, did I mention, they scheduled the eval for smack dab in the middle of my schedule-oriented, sleep-loving child's nap time?

Of course, the best laid plans always go to hell. Little Bug was up from 11:30 pm to 3:30 am this morning. He spent most of it showing off his first real tune full song mastery ("Skip to My Lou"), but the fall out is he is going to this important eval with less than half the sleep he needs to function well and without a nap.

I did what I could to minimize the fall out. He is wearing his favorite train shirt and I have an entire bag of M&Ms to bribe him out of sleep and into some semblance of a decent mood. But the reality is that he doesn't do well on no sleep and this evaluation will not be his best foot forward.

Which is fine. I spoke to some of his trusted therapists today and they gave me some ammo to use if things start going in a direction we all know they shouldn't go. I'm prepared to get a little feisty if they take his sleepiness for apathy or inability.

They willingly tell you that their interest in therapy is focused on making sure the child can function in public school....not in life or society or in his best self. That's fine, too.

But my interest in therapy, my focus, is broader than that. This is my kid's life, the future of his therapy. Perhaps I won't have to advocate at all for Little Bug today. That would be awesome.

But I am preparing to, just in case. And they should prepare to because a mama bear hopped up on 2.5 bottles of DDP is nothing to shake a stick at.

Misery Loves Company

Last night was horrible.

Little Bug woke up at 10:30 pm and proceeded to be awake until 4:30 am. Most of the time he was babbling or singing or kissing my shoulder and begging to be "up on mama," things that would melt my heart during any other time of day.

I struggle with these nights. Beyond sleep deprivation, my patience is very low and I often have mama moments I'm not proud of. I raise my voice sternly, I don't always count to 10, etc. I'm not the mama I want to be on these nights.

Last night was worse because Little Bug has suddenly developed this belligerent toddler attitude...he willfully disobeys, sticks his tongue out in response to direction, and LAUGHS at me when he is scolded.

My mom once told me a story about a time when she spanked me, and I turned and looked her in the eye and laughed. She had to lock herself in her room until she could calm down because her other option was to become a mama she didn't want to be.

Last night, the scene, substituting the spanking for stern words, repeated itself. Little Bug snapped my last thread by hitting me in the face and then laughing about it. I put him in his bedroom and baby gated him in to let him cry himself into exhaustion. We did this horrible cycle for a while.

The next few hours were not pleasant, most likely for anyone in our neighborhood.

This morning I was 20 minutes late getting out of the house, only to hit freak traffic and construction that added a solid 40 minutes to my 7 minute drive (I take locals, for Pete's sake!) . Little Bug was late for breakfast. I won't even begin to go into how late I was for work.

The whole time I was trying to keep a positive attitude on the morning. I made sure to smile and sing to Little Bug, forgiving him even when I wasn't particularly feeling like it. I breezed into work with an air of "let's do this awesome day," even though I was secretly trying to invent ways to call in sick. I even took a moment to marvel at some of my favorite fall wild flowers.

But yeah, today was blowing.

Almost immediately I connected with two of my Internet-turned-real-life friends who have it much harder than I do in the sleep department. I felt bad complaining about my one-off night, but my wise friend noted that "misery loves company."

And it's true. Because after commiserating a bit with them and having some morning chatter with other mama friends, I was feeling much more myself and willing to face the day with a positive attitude.

And two DDPs and a Red Bull, but the friends have helped a lot, too.

Unicorn Fluff

So this sleep book...the one about unicorns and kittens and rainbows and slumbering babes....it's still annoyingly upbeat and positive while our nights are not so much.

But it's actually really illuminating.

In the grand scheme of sleep issues, ours are minimal. To be frank, the reason I even started modifying the routine is because I want to be able to deal with the sleep-issues surrounding the upcoming (HA!) arrival of our second son without dealing with Little Bug, but I wanted to give myself months to deal with this transition to avoid having him just cry it out and keep me up more than he is. My selfish goal is to be able to have him go to sleep by himself and stay there all night long. I want that for him, of course, but even more, I don't want to be dealing with two crying babies on my own. I'd like to be able to deal with them at night in an orderly and smooth way.

Rainbows, unicorns, dancing fairies.

And as much as I like the warmth of my baby in my bed, my husband's chest is pretty warm the 3 nights a week I get to share a bed with him....and yeah.......I'd like that back, too.

Ahem.

So this sleep book. It claims that there is a certain amount of sleep most children inherently need each night. It states that if your child is getting wiggy around bedtime, instead of saying "Oh, poor Little Bug is starting to get tired" and going on with your evening, you should just put your kid to bed.

Kid is tired = parent should put kid to bed. No matter when the botanical garden closes.

Rocket . Science.

Sadly, this no brainer statement really hit home for me. Little Bug's 8 pm bedtime was arbitrarily chosen because it worked for my schedule and he seemed to do fine with it.....minus the 30 minutes beforehand when he would start sucking him thumb and whining. I just thought that was what kids did in the evening; it never connected with me that I might be keeping him up past the time his body inherently wanted to be up.

Another instance of "I'm a first time mama and have no idea what I am doing" with a healthy dose of "I'm being unintentionally selfish and inflexible."

Sigh. I hate you, book.

So this week I've been watching Little Bug in the evenings to monitor his mood and when he starts to go down. A few nights ago, when he started to get fussy and whiny, I just started his bedtime routine early and put him to bed.

He was deeply asleep 30 minutes before his "bedtime."

And mama is a believer.

It's going to be an adjustment for us all. As a working mama, my evenings are so precious with my son, and I am going to be giving some of that up. We've still not even attempted anything serious with the going to sleep alone or staying in bed during the night or the waking up during my morning showers and pounding on the door while sobbing "baf, Baf, BAFFFFFFFF" pieces of our life, but those will come. I also know that every kid is different and that what is working for my kid would never work for another kid, including Little Bro.

Kids are lame and awesome like that.

So although this book is just a big pile of unicorn fluff, it is giving me a new way to view my child and how much of his routine I can attempt to control, which has been very illuminating.

And possibly the stuff of unicorns, kitten, and rainbows....we shall see.

Mhnk, Mhnk, Mhnk

And thus ended Adoptivus.

Last night we were working on some sleep training. I've selected a program that is meant to "gently" ease my child over the course of months into wanting to sleep like a champion in his own bed.

How lovely and charming and idealistic. Rainbows, kittens, unicorns, slumbering babies, blah, blah, blah.

This book makes it seem so easy.

Stupid book.

Last night was bad. Like, very bad for our normal. Little Bug woke up at 11 pm and was seriously ready to play until 3 am. Appa and I got about 3 hours of sleep between us.

It was bad.

I was mad.

Forget this "gentle" crap....at about 1:45 I shut Little Bug in his room and held the door shut, hoping he would sob and pound and tug on the door enough to tire the umph right out of him.

Instead, he pitter pattered quickly to the door and did the last thing I expected.

He knocked.

He knocked over and over again, occasionally saying "mhnk, mhnk, mhnk" for emphasis. For about 3 minutes.

It only stopped when Appa and I could no longer suppress our laughter, and we let him out to come lay in our bed.

The rest of the night sucked, but those 3 minutes were enough to remind us that we actually liked him enough to want to try the "gentle" approach.

Coming Out of the Closet

I . like . cosleeping .

I spend 3 nights a week without my husband, and the honest truth is my perfect little hot pretzel stick son is a fantastic spooner. Most of the time, I really enjoy having him share my bed with me. I absolutely cherish the time I get in the morning when he is still nuzzled up to me while I watch him sleep.

However, I've determined that, for our family and my son, it's not the healthiest choice, physically or emotionally. So, starting next Monday, after our last vacation for a while is finally complete, I'm going to be retraining all three of us away from cosleeping.

Appa is not happy about it, I'm a little bummed about it, and I can guarantee Little Bug won't be on board. But it is the right thing to do for us, and what is right isn't always what is easy.

I've started looking into sleep training books and methods and there are so many to choose from. I'm considering just blindly picking one and going with it. Seriously, I assume they all are just different methods to the same end, right?

I hate the fact that Little Bug is going to be sad and put up a good fight. I hate the fact that I'm going to be the enforcer because Appa is such a push over when it comes to this. I hate the fact that I'm going to need a lot more DDP to make it through the day. I hate the fact my little boy won't be spooning me for much longer and mumbling "choo choo" in my ear.

But I love the fact that my family is growing and changing and that this is in preparation for one son to grow up a little so our next son can assume his position as our baby.

Family. Work. Sleep.

I've spent the last two weeks "hibernating."

In the last 7 days, I got promoted at work. Although this is a very cool thing, it also comes with a client and projects that need significant attention...like yesterday. I also flew across the country for a weekend. I hosted my family for a couple days and then turned around and started hosting my little sister. I attempted (and basically failed) to spend some quality time with my husband, as it has been nearly a month since we had a quality night to ourselves. I raised my kid and he's doing great.

So, by hibernating, I mean that I've drained my life down to the bare essential priorities lately.

Family. Work. Sleep.

I've barely uploaded (or taken) pictures of Little Bug this month. Blogging has been reduced to the barest minimum to preserve my family memories. Facebook is hit or miss. E-mail? What's that?

It's felt odd, but not nearly as odd as I expected it to feel. I don't FEEL disconnected or left out, I simply miss those people who I connect with through blogs and Facebook.

The people, not the medium.

The online community is here to stay in my life. I have made wonderful friendships and will continue to cultivate new ones that will enrich my life and my family's life. Am I going to throw that away? Not a chance. But, I've sort of enjoyed shutting the computer at night and curling up (in bed!) with a book. I've enjoyed turning away from my computer at work to proof a large project with only my iPod, and not Facebook notifications, as my companion. Yahoo? It's about to be a thing of the past.

I'm going to continue to find this balance that seems like it could really start working for me right now with some tweaking. Balancing what (or to be blunt, who and why) my online priorities with my basic life priorities.

Family. Work. Sleep.

A Big-Boy Bed Training Mama's Prayer

Dear God of Normal Sleep Patterns,

I'm afraid to name aloud the big-boy miracle that has occurred the last two consecutive nights, but you and I both know what it is, and if you could keep that up, I will be eternally grateful.

Please don't tell me the only reason it is happening is because my son's bedtime has been accidentally pushed back an hour on those nights. I cannot handle a 2 year old with a 9 pm bedtime.

Amen.

Childhood P&P 101

Little Bug must have recently gotten hold of a Policy and Procedures book on Childhood because he's suddenly gotten wise to a major childhood rule, namely

Avoid falling peacefully to sleep at all costs.

If you don't count all the bad nights of teething and growth spurts and illness (and I don't because I've mentally repressed most of them), Little Bug is a pretty easy going sleeper. He needs his routine, but when followed, he had always been a pretty willing participant.

Until now.

Suddenly the prospect of night night make Little Bug turn into the manic clown/demon/charmer. Sometimes he will just cry and throw a fit. Sometimes he will play coy and beg for us to lay with him, only to try to distract us from our lullabies with kisses and silly smiles. Sometimes he begs for another book, signing "read" while pointing pathetically to his book case. Sometimes he wants to play with his monkey from Korea (who is completely neglected any other time). Sometimes he will ask for another drink or Appa (or me if Appa is putting him down). Sometimes he insists on having the wooden engine and caboose of a decorative "choo choo" in bed with him, which he lazily rolls over his tummy while eyeballing it (and me) from the side.

It's gotten to the point where we've started placing bets on what stall tactic he will employ. Whether he'll opt for the flat out naked run from the bathroom to another room to hide or whether he'll bravely go into this own room, hop on his bed, and try his hand at the charm.

Sure, it adds 20-30 minutes to our nighttime routine, but it is secretly hilarious to watch this little tiny baby morph instinctively into a broody, manipulative, adorable, stubborn child.

The Sideways

Last night, after a really weird afternoon that culminated in a 2-hour high fever, Little Bug went down without a fight and Appa and I settled in to watch a ridiculously long series finale and get some freaking questions answered.

2 hours went by....still waiting for answers. 2 hours 10 minutes went by....just . starting . to . get . . to . the . point...

Pitter patter, pitter patter.
Door open.
"What's up, Mama and Dada?"

Oh, HELL no.

Appa paused the show, and I corralled Little Bug back into his room, letting him know that it was, for sure, not play time. Or, at least, I thought I made myself clear, but apparently not.

What happened from that point on is a case of a parenting alternate "sideways reality." The textbook situation that somehow spirals out of control, with your normal routine slipping away from you and replaced with a world where 2 year olds are wide awake and ready to be loving life at Midnight.

So, Appa finally knocked on the door and uttered the most ridiculous proposal...one that made total sense in this sideways reality. Let's bring our kid down to join the fun, finish the last 20 minutes of our show, and then end this party with a family cosleep.

Maybe we could even fly a crashed plane off a beach....you know, just for kicks.

So, as I watched the final seconds of my questions not being answered (but still satisfied anyway), I looked over and watched my son laughing his head off as he sat between Appa and I, bright-eyed and pleased as can be to be hanging with us at 1 am. I wasn't exactly sure how we got to this point and were okay with it, and I half expected a smoke monster to come slithering by, but I got this sense that this sideway reality wasn't so bad. It's nice to enjoy special, out of the ordinary moments with those you love. Especially those moments that are born from breaking sacred parenting rules simply for the sake of enjoying the smiles of your family.

But tonight, it's back to the island of normal bedtimes and boundaries.

Let A Sleeping Child Lie

There is an old adage, "let sleeping dogs lie." Or maybe that's not the way it goes, but whatever.

Last night Appa and I got another reality check of "You're Still Novice Parents and Are Idiots Sometimes."

Yesterday we switched Little Bug over to his "big boy" bed, which is really just his crib converted to a toddler bed with a railing. To be honest, he probably isn't exactly 100% ready (as evidenced by his two swan dives right over the side rail less than 3 minutes into his exploration), but he will need to be completely comfortable in his real big boy bed in his big boy room in a year, so we decided to take things one step at a time and start now with the transition. Plus, Little Bug thrives on challenge, so without being pushed, he would probably happily stay in his crib for the next few years.

He loves the new bed. Loves it. He finds being able to declare "out" and then get out himself to be one of the funniest things. Ever. That's a good thing.

But just to really ease into this transition, I rocked him to sleep last night and then placed him in his bed. A few hours later, I heard a soft thump and went to check on him. Sure enough, he was on the ground, facing the opposite way, slumbering peacefully.

STEP AWAY FROM THE SLEEPING CHILD. STEP AWAY FROM THE SLEEPING CHILD. DO NOT TOUCH THE SLEEPING CHILD.

Oh, but I did.

Appa and I thought we should put our peacefully sleeping child back in his bed. Why, because we are idiots. Of course he woke up and spent the next 4 hours (did I mention this all went down around midnight to start with) alternating between crying and demanding to be rocked in the chair and having a grand old time in his new bed while laughing his head off. The cry-it-out method was a big fat joke, although I secretly thought the little pitter patter of his determined feet running toward the door each time I shut it was adorable.

It's less adorable now that I am sitting at my desk at work, double fisting DDP and wondering how I am going to make it through today. Even worse, Little Bug slept through his diaper and clothing change this morning...something I have never in my life seen him do. I don't think today is going to rock for him, either.

So the moral of this story: let a sleeping child lie.

Patience

Patience.

This word has been my mantra for years. I have it in a beautiful gold necklace in hangul; I breath it to myself as I am counting to 10; I roll it around in my head when my heart gets overly jumpy.

At work when I am evaluated, the same comment comes up over and over. You're so patient. Unfortunately, I sometimes seem to use up all my patience at work, leaving less for my husband and son, the two people who deserve it the most.

Lately I've been losing my patience more and more with Little Bug. I can make excuses for myself and say it's due to lack of sleep (I don't function well when I am sleep deprived), or due to the stress of our crazy silverware training that doesn't seem like a big deal but it actually emotionally killing me a little each day (watching the 16 month olds scoop circles around my 2 year old every afternoon on my lunch break is hard to swallow, especially as I walk away from said hysterical, head banging child), or due to the lingering effects of all of our illnesses (I didn't blog much last week because I was sick AGAIN), or due to the bad weather that is keeping us cooped up in the evenings, or due to the crazy work stress I have right now.

Those are all factors in my life right now, but they are also just excuses. I'm Little Bug's mom, and he deserves to be above all that other stuff.

It's hard. So hard. He's so challenging right now as he fights back more and understands more and more about what he wants and does not want and can (like physically) and cannot have. He's two and he's going through a development phase and he has needs. It's expected that he is going to hit and yell and cry and throw a fit. In the midst of this, we need to be setting boundaries, and that job usually falls to me, as Appa likes to fall into the roll of "good cop," leaving me inevitably to play the roll of "bad cop."

It's not like I scream at him or hit him or throw him around. But do I count to 10 before I say "NO" in my "loud, stern voice?" Not always. This morning Appa brought Little Bug into our bed a half hour early because he was crying and woke up early. Appa had a very late night and needed the sleep, but Little Bug was ready to play and cuddle with his Appa (he doesn't cuddle with me in the mornings very often…something that hurts my feelings tremendously). Appa needed the sleep, so he asked me to hold Little Bug. Of course, Little Bug only wanted Appa.

So I put him back in his crib and let him cry for 20 minutes. In Appa's sleepy haze, he said "I just don't get why is he being punished?"

Sigh. Why? Because his Mama had no patience at 5:30 this morning (and was maybe a little put out by the not wanting to cuddle thing). And that's not cool. So, I got up and we played and had fun, but I've felt guilty all morning.

So, for the next few days, I am going to wear my necklace each day and focus all of my "famous patience" everyone else thinks I have on my son, the one who deserves it the most.

5:30 tomorrow morning, here I come.

I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, Little Bug Likes Me!

Some days, deep in my heart, I think Little Bug loves Appa a lot more than he loves me. They share a special bond, and Little Bug is undeniably a "daddy's boy." Of course, this often hurts my feelings, even though I know it shouldn't. I worry that perhaps my post adoption blues and inability to really bond with Little Bug early on irreparably limited the love he could have for me in comparisons to Appa.

Other days, I don't feel that way...as much.

This week two things happened that really changed the way I see Little Bug's connection to me. The first was after a feeding session at school. As usual, I gave him a kiss and started to leave and he freaked out. Like, huge, real, anguished tears. It apparently took a while to calm him down.

I'm not going to lie and say it made me feel really bad (but it did make me feel moderately bad). Instead, it made me feel good. Never once has Little Bug cried when I've left him at school (although I don't do that often). It actually, in a sick and twisted way, made me feel really happy that he wanted me to be there.

Second, the Blogging Gods read my braggy post about my "kid's kick a@@ immune system"...I am sure it is obvious where this is going. Last night's high fever, croupy cough, and lack of sleep drama was so brutal that I cried all the way to work. Appa took the morning off to tend to Little Bug and I came home at noon to take over. Instead of taking the desperately needed nap, Little Bug wanted to be on me or next to me....all the time. For 4.5 hours my usually curious and active little 2 year old sat next to me on the couch, his head resting on the arm I wrapped around his warm body. At one point, he laid his head on my lap and finally took some sleep. It was overly apparent that the only thing Little Bug wanted today was his mama. Even after Appa came home, Little Bug would continue to crawl up next to me to cuddle in. It was actually so pathetic, I feel a slight twinge of guilt at taking such supreme enjoyment out of it.

Appa, who knows my inner doubts and is so good about lifting me up, looked over at us at one point and said "See, all he wants is his mother. You comfort him."

And I do. Even though I am the mama who wasn't exactly emotionally there for him in the beginning and even though I am the mama who is always the one cracking the therapy whip and building and reinforcing the boundaries and starting the time outs and saying no to "more" of whatever junk Appa has been sneaking him....

...I am also the mama who he wants to cuddle into every time he is sick or tired or scared. I am the mama he asks to sing his favorite songs his favorite way and the only mama who can tickle him to illicit both the cutest laugh AND a plea for more. I'm the mama who is always the first to pick up on a new word or a new sign, and I am the mama who "shakes your booty" with him every night. Despite it all, I am his mama.

And just like every other part of my attachment/motherhood process, I feel a shift after today that I know is permanent for me. Another little lingering doubt floating in the back of my head that has resolved itself. It's a wonderful feeling.

So, since my sick baby literally just woke up crying in pain, I'm off to comfort him into the wee hours of the morning. Kinda looking forward to it, actually.

I Will Miss This

A bloggy friend of mine recently wrote a post about taking the time to enjoy the period of life you are in right now because a time will come when you will miss it. It really stuck with me.

So, I will someday miss the nights when all Little Bug wants to do is sit on my lap and have me sing his three favorite songs to him...over and over and over. When he grabs my face to make sure I am watching him, just because he likes me to.

I will miss those bad nights where Little Bug constantly wakes up crying and will only be consoled if I am standing over his crib. I will miss how he will occasionally look up from his butt up hybrid fetal position to make sure I am still there. I will miss how he needs my presence when he is feeling most vulnerable.

I will his different cries and how I have learned what they mean. Even the loud, angry cry. One day he won't make that anymore and that unique sound that is so totally his will be relegated to my memory only.

I will miss the nights when he can't fall asleep, and I have to sit by his bed. Soon my time will be divided and it won't be so easy to devote hours in the evening to his bedside alone.

So, even though my eyes are falling out from fatigue, and I even though I rolled over in bed last night and let Little Bug cry because, as I vehemently told our very sick Appa, "I just CANNOT do it right now," I really will miss all of it someday.

And remembering that makes it all a little bit easier today.

The Bad Habits are Always the Most Fun

In the last few weeks, Little Bug has developed a really weird sleep pattern. Each morning he wakes up like clockwork at about 5:00 am. (He usually slept until 6:30). If left in his crib, he will stand and cry. Unlike our nighttime routine when this happens, he doesn't seem to respond to our tricks to get him down, and quite frankly, even if he did, it would be time to get him up once he finally went back down.

So, for the past several weeks, Little Bug has been sleeping that last hour in bed with us, and 9 times out of 10, sleeping peacefully. Twisting, turning, and sometimes freaking me out by getting right into my face and waiting for me to wake up. The silly smile I get when I do open my eyes is worth it, though. But overall, he isn't really bothering Appa and I when he comes into bed with us in the mornings.

And boy, oh boy, my baby is cuddly. Lots of mothers talk about the smell of their kids, but for me, it's the heat. There is a special sort of heat that Little Bug emits right when he wakes up. His skin is so smooth and soft and it feels like hugging a big warm loaf of bread (not that I make it a practice to do that). Even better, lately when I pick up my warm loaf of bread, his long not-a-baby-anymore limbs are a bit lax and it strikes me--every time--how he is such a little human now, not a baby.

I truly look forward to this hour of the morning.

BUT--we are also walking a dangerous line. We've been sucked into cosleeping for periods of time in the past, and for our family, it is not a viable long-term option. This morning cuddle time feels different in that he has slept most of the night in his bed and is still doing "pretty well" with his nighttime routine. (Damn you, Terrible Twos testing boundaries period!)

So, we continue to do this little morning routine, even though I worry we are setting a dangerous precedent. Coupled with the fact that we are going to be moving Little Bug to a toddler bed in the next few weeks, I think this has the potential for some "reprogramming" down the line.

But for now, I am going to enjoy my little loaf of Korean bread first thing each morning.