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.

Overdue travel: ripping off the band-aid

We have never gone to the beach. Except for in Maine. But not once in 9 years of living in the DC Metro area have we been to the ocean as a couple or as a family. Last year I took my son to visit my sister and her kids in the Outer Banks. But the three of us in our nuclear unit have never gone to the beach together or even been on any vacation that didn't involve going to visit family or friends.

We finally changed that. It seemed unwise to go through with our first kid-free vacation to leave our traumatized-by-the-beginning-of-school boy with his grandma overnight for the first time. So instead we all headed down to Chincoteague and Assateague Island for a short getaway.

I do mean short. We arrived at the hotel at 10:30 p.m. on a Thursday and headed for home the next day just after 2 p.m. It was cold and windy and a little rainy. But our little boy had a fabulous time playing in the waves just the same. We were out there for about a hour and a half, including two changes of clothing for me (pants to shorts and donning an extra jacket) and three for the little guy (into bathing suit from shorts, then to extra long-sleeved bathing suit on top).

Then we visited the nature center where some folks were going to set free Monarch butterflies they had raised and tagged. We learned about terrapin turtles and got to touch a horseshoe crab (I'd come to believe there never really was an animal -- only an empty shell). My husband stayed shivering in the car predicting nightmares about the swarms of mosquitoes closer to the woods while I jogged with my boy on my hip to give him at least a glance at some wild ponies. We ate lunch in town and then spent a while keeping our kid's fingers off fragile items in a gallery before buying a piece of art for the first time in years.

I told my husband that this trip was like ripping off a band-aid. We just needed to do it in order to move on. Now that we've done something, I'm hoping we can make it out to Shenandoah for some hikes and eventually back to Assateague for camping, which I've heard lovely.

And then the next band-aid will be to finally get away for a night without our little one.

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.

Eleven hours of sleep

My son woke up in his own bed today at 7:00 a.m. He went to bed at 8:00 last night. This is unheard of! Eleven hours solid, and solo.

I'd woke up before 6:00 and had already come downstairs and done a few things -- also a rarity, though a goal I've been wanting to work toward for a while. I went up when he called for me since my husband was still resting. We chatted, me sitting on the glider rocker, him sitting up in bed. I opened his blinds and turned on his little moon light from Ikea. Then we read a few books. I'm trying to make it seem like it was extra fun to spend time in his room in the morning. I don't mind snuggles in bed, but if this is one more step toward independence and feeling secure in his own skin, I'm all for it!

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.

ISO Waldorf Education Rhythmic Boot Camp

I just started reading Beyond the Rainbow Bridge and quickly remembered why I put it down the first time I picked it up. The author is all warm and fuzzy recalling her wonderful mother's influence. Barbara Patterson notes how great her mom was at establishing rhythm and routine in the family's life; she turned her "everyday tasks into works of art. Even her laundry line looked like a painting: all the socks o the line matched, then came all the men's shirts hanging neatly side-by-side, then all the colorful kitchen towels flapping in the breeze." This is page one. I feel hopeless already.

Part of why I'm drawn to Waldorf education is in the hope of cultivating more of this intentionality into my life. Patterson says that she knew if it was Monday, it was wash day. When I was a kid, I knew it was Saturday night because Love Boat was on at 9:00. The rest of the summer went by in a blur; I usually went to bed and got up after 10. And I had a heck of a time sleeping (all that Pepsi in my system maybe, or just shot adrenals from early days of no breastfeeding and eating a crappy diet with an as-yet-unknown celiac body). There was not much sense of purpose or drive or quiet reverence for beauty unless it came from within me and in spite of my home life.

That's a little on the harsh side, but mostly true. So when I read this lovely description of Patterson's childhood, I feel like I need to sign up for immersion Waldorf parenting school: I want to experience what this feels like for myself. Patterson specifically says, "I did not have to learn to bring rhythm and good habits to my own children's lives and to the children of my classrooms. I already had them, inside. I had grown up with them." Yes, I've made it all the way to page two. Now can I take Bill and Ted's time machine back to Little House on the Prairie please, or will someone start a reality TV show that truly does advocate the simple life. (Of course all the cameras would need to be hidden -- the obvious presence of media would blow the whole experiment).

But seriously, what if you haven't grown up with these habits or well-tuned internal clocks? I guess you read the book, if you can stomach it, and you try to learn as much from your parent-child class if your Waldorf school has one. I probably would have made more progress if I'd done more reading now that we are almost halfway through the year. I did read the articles for parent meetings, even tracking one down online when I left the paper copy in the bathroom at school! I would benefit from more study, but I'm also trying not to force anything and just to trust that I will move at the pace I will move.

When my son stopped napping, I started thinking that next year I would have him do the afternoon program at the school, extending his day from something like 8:30-noon for three days a week in the three-day kindergarten preschool to 3:00 for two of those days (or maybe all three). At least then he'd have more of a model of calm and a group think nap/rest complete with lavender oil. And maybe if I had more time -- and more consistent count-on-able time -- to myself and for work, maybe I could better manage my household in a consistent way.

These past few days on holiday vacation have been nice, and I have found more time to stay in the moment, but I'm also waking annoyed because our son is waking early and wanting to nurse several times in the morning (Rudolph Steiner might not exactly approve of extended breastfeeding -- see this article from Waldorf Without Walls). I am impatient that my son is still so revved up and, well, impatient. But we were gone from home for a week in very different environments, so I should cut the boy some slack. He's not even three yet.

Anyway, I decided to log in to technology instead of read more. For now.

Sleeping Under the Rainbow

"What the heck is that?" my husband asked when I unfolded the rainbow silk I had just purchased from A Toy Garden.

"It's going to be a canopy above the bed!" I had just spent a good deal of time driving to IKEA, redoing the car seat and then driving home very close to the wheel with an 81" package of the simple Vikare extendable bed (and Rast bedside table). I am ready to get our son off the floor (where he tramples all over his sleeping spot) and to create a place of beauty and serenity. While I love that he wakes up kissing me if I come into his bed to soothe him in the night or nurse him in the morning (and get some more sleep!), I'm ready for him to see his space as special and calm on its own.

"The women at that company are so nice," I offered my skeptic. One wrote me to say they'd sent it out hours after I placed the order. When I replied to say thanks and that I hoped it would help my son sleep, two different people wrote back with words of encouragement. With that kind of karma, it has to work, right?

I hope that we can get the bed put together this weekend or next, and I'm hoping to figure out a way to drape the silk that looks good and isn't too challenging to execute. It's darker than I expected but just so lovely. It has to be calming to sleep under a subtle rainbow, right?

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.