Musical Beds

So the new house is fabulous. The girls love their window seat (upon which all of their stuffed animals have taken residence) and their reading corner. They love the fact that their clothing are now at child-height and mom hasn't yet put any sort of latch on the closet, providing all kinds of tempting dress-up entertainment (the same goes for mom's closet by the way - *sigh*). They love the pale pink walls (we inherited them) and the mauve (*gasp* - inherited that too) carpet.

 

They do not love sleeping upstairs after 2-4 years of sleeping in a dark basement where the only noises were from the creaky floor upstairs or the noises that Himself and I made inside (a lot of noise, but comforting, familiar noise, apparently). They do not love the shadows that play across the floor in the dark from their sunburst window (must find a window covering) or the freight train whistles which start up about bedtime or the traffic sounds or - well, apparently anything about their room once the sun goes down and it's bedtime.

 

My amazing sleepers have turned into crazy little people.

 

Their mother is turning into a crazy big person.

 

White noise. No noise. Jazz music, lullabyes, BBC radio, nightlight in the room, nightlight in the hallway, door open, door closed, prayers, songs, stories ... and firm "Everyone stays in bed. Period." All to no avail.

 

Take last night. Quiet story and letter game (a new favorite) in a dimly lit bedroom. Family prayers. Individual prayers. Promises that sleep would come and that everyone would be in her original bed come morning. All seemed to work beautifully until I came up to bed 2 hours later. There I found one sleeping Woodstock - sprawled out on the landing. No blanket, no pillow, but apparently prefering the open hallway to her comfortable bed and the light sleeping noises of her sister.

 

I put her in her bed. She murmured. I gave her Meow (her stuffed snow leopard).

Twenty minutes later, she'd joined me in bed.

Himself came up, but her to bed, came to bed.

Sometime in the middle of the night, a train whistle sounded (keep in mind we're MILES from the tracks - it's not like we live RIGHT NEXT TO THEM), Pebbles, who normally sleeps the sleep of the dead, woke screaming "Scared of choo choo. Scared of choo choo!" and could not be consoled. On my way to get her, I tripped over Woodstock, who was now fast asleep on the floor next to my bed - a blanket, but no pillow.

I ended up with BOTH kids in Woodstock's TWIN bed. Woodstock next to me. Pebbles lying on top of me (a position, which, since birth has been the fastest way to get her to calm down - with her head on my chest). They immediately drifted off. I read the BBC and Washington Post and played a dozen games of solitaire on my phone.

When they were sound asleep and my brain was screaming because it was so tired, I gently put Pebbles in her bed. Her eyes flew open and she remembered why I was there in the first place - and despite the fact that there were no choo choos anymore that could be heard, she was not listening.

She toddled off and climbed in bed with Himself.

I went back to soothe Woodstock, who was now awake. She went back to sleep.

I went back to bed. In my delirum, I completely forgot Pebbles was in bed with us.

I woke up an hour later when Pebbles kicked me. I sat up, and tripped over ... you guessed it, Woodstock, who was back to sleeping on the floor next to our bed.

 

I give up. Last night was worse than normal, but aliens have invaded my children and no one is sleeping. I'm planning a train trip to nowhere (again) to show them that trains aren't scary, but I am almost as tired as I was when I had a newborn. Sleeping in hour to 90-minute stretches is not working out.

 

Apparently, Woodstock doesn't like it either - she asked if we could live in the new house during the day and go back to the old house at night.

 

I'm thinking those noise-cancelling headphones that Bose sells for a small fortune don't sound half bad. And I'm putting sheets on the guest bed, so when everyone invades me, I can run and hide - the door sticks in there, no one will ever find me.