i think, maybe just maybe, please lord don’t jinx me, we can take down the white flag. it seems that, for the moment, the sleep gods have answered my prayers. jackson’s screams have, dare i say it, subsided.
in fact the last two nights my almost 2 year old has hunkered down in his ‘big boy bed’ (crib w/ toddler rail), closed his eyes, and uttered not a peep nor a cry. creeping down the stairs was surreal. ok, made it down the first 3 – no sound. three more – still nothing. hit the bottom, turned around looked up – nada. started post-bedtime clean up routine expecting only to make it through one room before the cries commenced and ended up on couch, under cozy blanket, with a glass of wine and a completely clean first floor. still nothing. oh thank you, thank you, thank you.
and in fact, that little man of mine slept all the way through the night. all the way until 7 the next morning. which has never, i mean NEVER happened. and even when his sister, cutting her first two teeth, fighting a sinus infection and adapting to her new room, woke and cried more than ever before jackson snoozed away. and not worrying and fretting and stressing about my son was so refreshing and so needed. talk about a happy kid? eleven hours of beautifully uninterrupted sleep = a smiley, only moderately whiny toddler. he’s been cracking jokes, talking in funny voices (new favorite thing) and making his sister laugh and laugh and laugh. total and complete awesomeness.
i’m sure this stage is short lived – who knows what will come of the next weeks and months. but i do know how grateful i am, even for three little days of brilliance. looks like jackson, or our angels, heard my mayday call.
last night, harper had a rough start but ended sleeping from midnight until i woke her at 7:30. and this meant, that i slept from midnight until 6 (when jackson awoke). and it was the kind of sleep in which your body doesn’t move; just sound, wonderful, perfect, deep sleep. and i caught the ever so slight glimpse of what sleeping all night every night might be like. how quickly the first 26 years of sleeping this way was forgotten the moment i had children. and i bet, how quickly sleeping, or not, the past two years will soon be a fleeting memory of the past.
as my grandma mary would say, this too shall pass. and it has, for now, in this form. like many of you said, our world is constantly changing and shifting. no two moments are alike and the tough days as well as the glorious ones will wax and wane. i’m not sure anything demonstrates this better than parenthood.
until the white flag is raised again my friends.
