Breathe on me, when you're not strong

I had a hunch my son was not in the greatest health when, on Wednesday morning, his breath didn't smell right. Whenever he gets a fever, his breath has a metallic or medicinal smell. I get the impression his body is heating up and detoxifying.

But it's hard to justify keeping a child home for funky breath when you've got a lot of work to do. So off he went for a full day of preschool. When we got home on a gorgeous afternoon, I was ready to walk him down to the library and finally get some exercise. He was whinier than usual (which is saying a lot these days), but we eventually made it out and back home in time for a quick dinner before I headed off to an ICAN meeting to watch Pregnant in America.

I didn't get home until 11 p.m. and had to find a source for a statistic for this piece on the NIH conference on vaginal birth after cesarean that was to be published by Mothering. I was exciting about the work and about having really gotten my head into this pregnancy at the meeting. My 20-week sonogram was scheduled for the following morning at 8 a.m. It seemed like perfect timing.

Except that it wasn't. I heard my four-year-old crying like a baby and wondered where the heck my husband was. Turns out he was right next to the boy in bed, as he had been for a few hours since the wakings and squirmings had started not long after he went to sleep. Something was up, and my husband, who had planned to work all evening while I was away at VBAC Central, was exhausted.

I told my son I was going to get him some water, dashed off the email I'd started, and went back up to more tears. I decided we were going to be together all night and that his wimpy IKEA bed was no match for my almost 20-pound-heavier-than-normal body. I suggested we move to the guest room, and he perked up at the idea and obligingly went to the bathroom before we headed downstairs. I didn't really know what his symptoms were, but I knew he'd be happy to take some "Curious George pellets," or Calms Forte, and I put some Rescue Remedy on his wrists and forehead.

He slept pretty well after that, until we plucked him out of bed Thursday morning to go to the appointment, which I did not want to reschedule or have my husband miss. E was clearly a little feverish and flushed, but that had faded within an hour or so. He was disappointed to have to cancel our playdate at the farm, but he acted pretty normal the rest of the day with, sadly, no desire to nap, even though I was dozing off on the couch right next to him.

I'm not sure when he crawled into our bed last night or this morning, but, right after my husband got out of bed and into the shower, I felt a little hand poking me and chirping, "It's morning time!"

I decided then the bug had passed.

We used to nurse

Last week things finally started to settle a bit once we had a buyer for our house. This piece was started several days ago but never finished, so I guess they didn't settle down all that much! I'll let the rest flow as it was written (verb tense inconsistencies and all) and just finish the story where it stood last week.
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Maybe now that my son sees that I'm not totally frantic all the time, he's able to stop being as whiny and just plain drop down to show he needs a close connection. And I think I've been more in touch with my own feelings than I'd been able to, living with half my life stuffed into closets or in my car or in storage and having to scrap dinner plans to get take-out or eat cold (organic) hot dogs and sauerkraut for dinner because some realtor wanted to bring over a client. We hope those days are behind us, and though there's still a lot to do, we are breathing easier...

So, for the first time in the two months since my son weaned on his third birthday, I've had the desire to nurse him and sense he wishes he could. He's been touching me in a way that says "we used to have a special way to comfort me, and now that's gone." He's also been putting his hands in his mouth a whole lot, and he was whiny and tired for the sitter the other day. So I made an appt with the craniosacral therapist who will split his time -- work on E for 30 min, and then work on me for the rest of the session. It's not ideal, but at least we both get something.

R said that E was pretty restricted in his head and compressed in his thoracic area. He said his fall a month or so ago was something he was indeed working around, and he recommended probiotics. Of course, now that he's not getting nutrition from me, I've got to be more vigilant about the probiotics and cod liver oil. I can't just assume he'll get a share from me. He's all on his own now.

And I have to find ways to meaningfully connect with him even if things are still a little nutty and rhythms & rituals are not so established. He fell asleep after the appt (at 6:15) and then woke at 10:45 p.m. a little hungry. I was still out at a MNO dinner, so my husband fed him and then I returned, quietly changed clothes and planned to snuggle him down to sleep since he'd been asking for me when he woke. Part of me thought I should just let him come into our bed and be a big family, but I knew that none of us would sleep as well as we would if he were in his room. I walked into his room to get his jammies, and he followed me, clearly content to go back in his bed.

I snuggled him and remembered why I loved for so long cosleeping in a family bed. It really is beautiful to share sleep, to share closeness. And it's great to be able to do that now that he doesn't need it all the time and feel like it's a homecoming. I am glad he has his own space, and he says with high eyebrows and a gleeful sense of pride, "I slept all night in my bed!" when he does (typically first waking us with the sound of pouring his IKEA mini-potty pee into the big toilet).

I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with me for not feeling nostalgic about nursing -- for just feeling such a clear-cut break after being so connected to nursing as part of my mothering identity for three years. It kind of felt humanizing to get the sense that we both felt something of a longing, even as we understood that chapter was over.

The latest on our family bed

Sickness brings people together.

My son was sleeping through the night in his own bed until he had a one-night fever back in the fall, probably five months ago. Then he started toddling into our room late in the morning.

After this most recent (longer!) illness, he spent a lot of time in our bed throughout the night, but the past few nights has been happily going to bed in his own room. I like him having his own space where some toys and books are, and it's nice to have our bed to ourselves when we retire. This is especially true on nights when I tutor; changing clothes around a sleeping child is not my favorite thing to do.

But even as I enjoy him growing up and being more independent, and us having our own space, there's something that feels so good and close when he comes into our bedroom and just snuggles into me. (He's off the addictive nursing kick; he'll still ask at 7 a.m., and I think I'm going to keep that up as long as he asks until we wean. I'm thinking we're going to have a weaning party; I've floated the idea of stopping after his birthday and he's started to talk about it on his own.)

As long as I'm not being groped or whined at for holding out when I just can't give any more, it's quite lovely to know that your child gets such pleasure from just being close to you. We feel like a team, the three of us, and there is nothing more wonderful than waking up to a smiling child beaming at you and kissing you.

Tonight, though, E was somehow wired and not ready to go to bed. Eventually, after he'd been lying down on the couch in the living room, E was carried upstairs by my husband who decided to take him into our bed, explaining that he'd be staying on Daddy's side. They laid down, and my son took my husband's head in his hands and pulled it toward him. LJ said it just about broke his heart.

If the boy is sad about something, I hope we can figure that out. But I'm just glad he knows he can get the love he needs.

My husband went to bed over an hour ago, saying "I'm going to go lie down with my kid." Time for me to join them.

Two in a Bed

I never read the book Three in a Bed, but I read plenty of other articles on co-sleeping and lots of the Sears library, and I've been to plenty of meetings of Attachment Parenting International and La Leche League, where we've talked about the family bed and night feedings. When my son was a baby, I could not fathom how anyone could want their child in a separate room.

But in the last few months, I forgot how much I initially loved sharing sleep. First I started sleeping in the spare bedroom on our old queen bed because our new latex mattress was making my back ache. Then I continued in part because my son seemed to sleep better and allow himself to be soothed by my husband if I wasn't there. I found myself saying the words I never thought I'd utter: Yeah, he sleeps through the night. This meant that he didn't wake to nurse and didn't wake to upset -- he just learned to go back to sleep.

And I learned to sleep well, too. It felt like I was living alone in a dorm room. For a while I would read poetry before shutting out the light and enjoying the expanse of the bed all to myself with no worries that I was going to wake up a boy -- my little one, or my sensitive sleeper husband. I think part of the reason my son got so used to nursing at every light waking was my desire to keep everything quiet so LJ wouldn't be too grumpy in the morning. That guy has a high sleep need, and it had better be quality sleep. So I stuffed E's little mouth with a breast before he had much of a chance to learn to self-soothe.

So it was heaven to be able to be apart from my son and yet know my husband could soothe him easily. Little E would toddle into the other room in the morning and snuggle with me, often falling back asleep after nursing. We all finally got solid sleep.

E slept alone most nights on vacation this summer, and I started to think about giving him his own room. Then the nap protesting started, and I figured he'd do better with space that was his own to quietly play/read/be rather than give him the whole upstairs to run around. The teacher at our Waldorf school agreed that he needed his own space.

At first, he seemed fine with it, talking about being a big boy in a big bed and in his own room -- and also about the "puppy" (huge stuffed dog) from my childhood that now takes up probably a full 10% of the room's surface area, a third of what is not covered by the full futon. But he does seem to be having some adjustment issues, and he's not the only one.

Last night I met my husband at a restaurant so that I could attend a meeting and he could bring the boy home. I said goodbye to them at 6:30 p.m. E fell asleep on the way home, as I'd predicted. When I finally came to bed at 12:30 a.m., I missed my boy a little. When I woke at 4:30 a.m. needing to pee, I missed him more. I knew he might wake soon since he'd gone to sleep early without a full last nursing, and it's no fun to try to get back to sleep worrying you're going to have to get up. (We are trying to keep him staying in his room as opposed to coming into our room, where he'll just wake LJ up. Eventually I'll probably still go in there but not nurse him in bed.)

I crawled into his bed, trying to give him some space. Within a few seconds, he gravitated toward me, his hands feeling around for my face. "Mommy..." he exhaled. "I want to nurse." I gave him a sip of almond milk and told him it was time to snuggle and sleep. This he accepted, but he nestled in close. We both slept for another two hours before he woke to nurse and start the day.

It's now 11:40 p.m. on another no-nap day. I don't know when I'll get to bed or what I'll do when I go upstairs. I'm behind on several projects having had almost zero solo weekday time in the past two weeks since he won't rest and I'm trying to be consistent that we stay quiet in his room. But I had log on (after over a week of no posting!) to make sure I documented how pulled I was by my son now that I know he's all alone in there. After so many frustrating afternoons with him not resting and in fact getting mad and aggressive with me, it's nice to feel how strong this desire for closeness and connection still is.

Man, I love him.