I have to be honest here, I never wanted to co-sleep with my children.

Not because I disagree with that philosophy, but because I can’t sleep with them in the same bed with me.

My son was born prematurely and was roughly the size of a cantaloupe when we brought him home.  After spending eight nights in the NICU, we were terrified to bring this small infant in to our bed with us, for fear that we’d roll over him.

Or worse, that my postpartum hunger might mistake him for a pizza and gobble him up as a midnight snack.

Plus, our house was small enough that I could see his crib from where I slept.  Our room wasn’t big enough to accommodate a bassinet or even a co-sleep attachment, so the situation didn’t lend itself to co-sleeping when he was young.

Once my daughter was born, we tried having her sleep in the room with us when we brought her home.  But, much like her brother, she grunted loudly all night long and couldn’t get settled, whether she was in a bassinet, or in the crook of my arm, or on my chest.  So, to try and encourage more restful sleep for all of us, we  put her back in her crib.

Sure, she protested as we expected.  And yes, getting up a couple few dozen times a night and climbing the stairs to her room was a pain in the ass, but it also meant that in the few handfuls of minutes when she was quiet, I could get solid sleep to recharge.

We were blessed with a first child that slept really well, and to this day, he conks out after we close his door. He’s been known to sleep through full-on fire alarms. When he was in Kindergarten, he used to ask us to “sleep over” in his bed with him from time to time, and occasionally we’d take him up on it.

Was it the most restful night? Not exactly.  Sure, there was an encroachment of space and the scattered kick or two.  But it wasn’t horrible.

A few weeks ago on vacation, the pull-out sofa bed that Jon and I planned on sleeping in the hotel room looked like it had been occupied by a couple of two-ton wooly mammoths prior to our stay.  Lumpy and thin enough to see the springs through the mattress, it didn’t give off the impression of obtaining a fantastic night’s sleep.

We had tried putting the kids in the same bed so that Jon and I could claim the open one once we were ready to retire, but five minutes after bedtime, my son came marching out to the living room and declared “This isn’t working.” So, it was decided that we’d each sleep with one of the kids.

My daughter isn’t a “once her head hits the pillow” kind of sleeper.  She needs more time to unwind.  She’s been known to stage full-length ballets in her bed after lights out.  Or launch one-woman-show monologues to her stuffed animals for 45 minutes.

I assumed that once she actually calmed her body down and fell asleep, she was solidly in slumber.

But that would be a very wrong assumption.

Don’t get me wrong, crawling in to bed next to her limp, sleeping body was adorably cute and heartwarming.  And the first time she snuggled up to me and whispered “Mama” in her sleep with a grin on her face was touching.

After that, the events of the night convinced me I will never co-sleep ever again.

The prefix “co” in co-sleep indicates that both of us would be sleeping, right?  Yet, it didn’t feel so symbiotic.

She was like a heat seeking missile, finding me no matter how far away I scooted.  During the night I clung to the side of the mattress with one half of my body, unable to effectively roll her away from me, but not quite lucid enough to make the smart decision to get up and move to the other side of the bed.

And then, there was the kicking.  My goodness, the kicking.  And the nudging.  And the elbows and knees in my back, face, chest, throat.  I do believe that she was trying to beat the crap out of me.

I don’t think I slept longer than 15-minutes at a time before being pounded like a whack-a-mole.  With each hit, I found myself praying for daylight.  And when it finally came and my sleeping beauty opened her eyes in the morning, I asked her how she slept.

Certainly, she couldn’t have had a restful sleep, right?  I mean, with all that movement? For crying out loud, she fell out of the bed at one point!

“Good.  Really good.”

Well, at least one of us did.

Much to her dismay, I moved to the pull-out sofa the rest of the trip, grateful that despite the 15-degree slant I was sleeping on, and the coil marks on my torso when I woke, I know I’d at least escape being pummeled in my sleep.

Still, there’s a part of me that wishes it would have worked out.  I wanted it to.  I had visions of my daughter and I cuddling and spooning during a rejuvenating night of sleep.  Perhaps one day in the future we’ll try it again.

When she’s older.  And I’m more sedated.

 

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You’d think after doing this “I have two children” thing for four years, I’d have my act together.  My juggling act, that is.  I thought by now I’d have it down to such a science that people would pay admission to see it operate so smoothly.

But I guess that’s what makes this Parenting job so interesting.  Just when you think you’ve hit your stride, your world tilts a tenth of a degree off its axis, leaving you hanging on to the walls and hoping your grandmother’s vase doesn’t get broken in the shift.

Earlier this week my son had a baseball game while my husband was out of town.  I brought along a huge bag of stuff to keep my daughter occupied during the 1.5 hour deal.  There was enough stuff in this bag to keep a preschooler busy for days.  A variety of activities and toys like coloring and princess accessories, and lest we not forget, snacks!

And yet, my daughter preferred to walk up and down the bleachers to play with a kid much bigger than she.  Which included, but was not limited to, falling in one of the spaces between the rows and noodling down to the concrete below, scaring the crap out of me and all the other parents in our vicinity.

Luckily, the bench she fell off of was pretty low, there was no crying or blood, and it pretty much nipped her will to bleacher-run in the bud.

But while this was happening?  My son was hitting a double.  And I missed it.

One day, I hope to get this delicate balance figured out.  How to spread my attention between both kids so that I can applaud the efforts of a home run while simultaneously coaxing the other away from that over-eager dog by a nearby tree.

Multi-tasking at its best, parenting more than one child requires the hand-eye coordination of a juggler.   Lose focus on one ball up in the air, and the whole act can feel like it comes crashing down.

I haven’t mastered that skill yet.  The one that can miraculously have eyes in two separate directions.  Or even better, the ability to be in two places at once.

When my daugther was a mere three months old, we took her to her very first baseball game at Coors Field.  We did this when my son was the same age, and it went so well, we thought we could tempt fate and try it with two kids.

My daughter was an angel on the way in to the stadium, falling asleep on my chest, held in by the Bjorn, and staying that way for the first two innings.  When she finally woke, she was happily sucked on the front part of the carrier while checking out the crowd.

Then Troy Tulowitzki hit a homerun.

The crowd around us erupted in cheers, the noise swirlied around the lower deck and amplified from the mezzanine above us, crashing down around our 12-week old in a way she wasn’t prepared for.

And as if to voice her opinion, my daughter let out a caterwaul that silenced most of the crowd around us.  I’m talkin’ Level 5 Meltdown so loud I’m sure the players could hear it on the field.

And that was it for me and watching the game.   I tried giving her a bottle but it only made her cry harder.  So I did what any parent would do, and got up to walk around with her.

She screamed from the moment I carried her out of the aisle, up the stairs through the concourse, and in to the bathroom where I tried to find a quiet place to give her the bottle again.  When that failed, I retreated to a bathroom stall and tried to nurse her, to which she also violently refused.

When I say “violently”, I mean that she screamed so loud that I’m sure someone, somewhere in the bathroom was calling Child Services, as it sounded like I was inflicting some serious pain on my child.

It was probably one of the single most embarrassing moments of motherhood for me.  The looks from people as I carried her screaming body while scouting a secluded area to calm her down didn’t help either.

Some where from sympathetic mothers who tried to give me the look of “Girl, I totally understand where you are.”  But some where from people that just screamed “What the hell are you doing here with that awful baby?”  And I even heard one guy look at me and tell his buddies “That’s why I’m never having kids.”

So, really, that was a selfless act of public service.  A walking contraception billboard.

And what happened while I was trying to console a screaming banshee out past the concourse?

My son’s adorable face was up on the Jumbotron.  For all of Coors Field to see.

Except his mother.

As heartbreaking as it was to return to my seat, only to find everyone around me remark “you missed it.  YOU MISSED IT!” I know that as a mother, these missed moments will be frequent and plenty.  I can’t stop them from coming, and I can’t prevent them from being missed.

There will be that perfect triple pirouette that wasn’t observed because I was taking someone else to the bathroom.  The one and only soccer goal of the season missed because I was retrieving someone’s water bottle from the car. There will be home runs and cartwheels and fastest laps and back flips that will go unseen.

All I can hope for as a parent is that I will eventually get my turn to witness those moments again, as once-in-a-lifetime as they may appear.

Does anyone knows a cameraman and has access to a Jumbotron?

 

 

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I had a rather unfortunate timing incident this morning.  In a meeting full of people.  At an inappropriate moment.

Someone was discussing something rather serious.  At that exact moment, I choked on my coffee.  And proceeded to look like I was stiffing giggles instead of coughing.  I could feel I was getting the stink eye, so I let go of controlling the whole fit and let loose.  Hoping that folks would realize I was choking rather than snickering.

Which got me thinking about the last time this happened to me.

 

The following was originally posted on this blog in November, 2011.  And yet, the humiliation of that moment in the theater lives on…

Jon and I sneaked out for a spontaneous date night after a parent/teacher conference last week.  It was an indulgent, Monday night outing, but since our babysitter was already there at the house, we’d thought we get use out of her, rather than paying for only an hour and being done.  We dropped our son back at home after the conference, got dinner started for the babysitter, then skedaddled out of there.

Being that it was a spur of the moment thing, we didn’t have all of our details figured out.  Like where we’d eat dinner.  The movie started at 7, so we drove over to the artsy theater to get our tickets, parked the car, then set out on foot to find some grub.  It felt very much like our New York City days.

Except, it was Denver.  In 30 degree weather, of which neither one of us was dressed warmly enough to endure (being that we’re solid car travelers now).  And, did I say this was DENVER?  It’s not like there’s a restaurant every 10 feet.  We walked several blocks and came across our go-to place for BBQ, not ideally what we were looking for, but it was warm and we were hungry.

After dinner, we headed back to The Esquire to see our movie, and got there so early that there was no one else in the theater.  Followed quickly by elderly people who wanted to ensure they got decent seats.  Ah, yes.  Is this what we’re becoming?  Early Bird Specials?  Perhaps.

But wait!  At least we had gadgets!  We spent about half an hour sitting in our seats playing Blokus on my iPhone before the commercials even started.

One thing I really loved about our home in Denver, despite it’s shoebox size, was the fact that we had a fenced-in back yard.  I’m talkin’ eight-foot high privacy fence.  Enough to walk around naked if you wanted.  Or, at least, that’s what my toddlers wanted.

We grew pretty reliant on the safety and security of those three faded wooden walls.

It was great to open the back door and release them in to the yard.  We had no fear of needing to shield them from anyone or anything.  There were no cars to worry about, no strangers peeking in at their antics, no threat of them wandering off.

Here in our new home, there are no fences.  It’s just a wide open space.  I can still open the back door and let the kids roam free.  The expansive lawn gives us lots of room to throw balls around, but having a yard without a fence has it’s pros and cons.

Pro: With no fence to obstruct our view, it feels like our backyard is ginormous.

Con:  With no fence (and no mature trees), the wind whips around that Power Alley of backyards and makes it feel like Dorothy is about to take a trip.  Every time a storm approaches, my ears remain on high alert for the tornado siren.

Pro:  We don’t have to skirt death to retrieve stray balls from the street and alley.

Con: Devoid of fences, it makes folks think it’s perfectly acceptable to traipse through your backyard to get somewhere.  Or let their dog shit in your bushes.

Pro: The kids can see their friends playing outside.

Con: The kids can see their friends playing outside.

Pro: You get to know your neighbors really well.

Con: The line between what’s yours and your neighbors’ can get a bit fuzzy.  I’m talking to you, guys with the rickety-ass play set, and the tuft of weeds at the bottom of the steps that my son is convinced is poison ivy.

We have never met the parents of the children that live behind us.  That didn’t stop the nanny from allowing the kids to walk in to our yard and help themselves to our play set last summer.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not comfortable watching other people’s children in my backyard when my own are sitting peacefully inside trying to focus on dinner.

The first time this happened, I just bit my tongue and hoped that the nanny would step in and retrieve the kids, but she didn’t.  I guess she had an important Facebook status to reply to.

So the second time this occurred, I opened the back door and politely yelled “hey guys, can you not play on our stuff if we’re not out here?”

The kids were very nice about it, climbed down in a timely manner and went back to play in their own backyard.  And it hasn’t happened since. Don’t get me wrong, the kids are very nice.  But the relationship feels awkward.

Still, because our play set and theirs is in such close proximity, it’s impossible to have both families playing outside without feeling obligated to have the kids over.

And that’s when I wish we had a fence.

I’m not saying that I’m anti-neighbor.  We had two sets of neighbors that recently moved, but when they were here, our kids would run from yard to yard, expanding their play area and toy options.  And I loved it.

Because I had met their moms.  I became friends with them.  I knew they would watch over my kids like I would watch over theirs without taking advantage of it. There were rules of engagement the kids had to abide by.

Like waiting to be asked to come over before crossing to the other person’s yard.

You’d look over at the corner of the property lines and see three sets of children, separated by an invisible divider, talking but not daring to cross until a deal was brokered.

As if there was a fence there.