Book n’ Beer: On interruptions and compassionate sleep training
So this afternoon I developed a mantra, albeit an unusual one, a mantra just the same. In an attempt to look at my situation with a glass half full approach, I found myself repeating these words over and over in my head: lots of people wish they could be enjoying a beer and a good book in the middle of the afternoon. Just ignore that creature gnawing at your left hand and you could be anywhere. A dark pub full of handsome Beatniks. A tavern down a dusty set of stairs in Rome. On a blanket on Miami-friggin’-beach!
Instead, I was parked on an exercise ball beside my child’s crib, staring at the bowl of cooling and thus congealing lemon grass and coconut soup that was supposed to be my lunch, with a beer in my right hand, a book balanced on my lap, and my forefinger and thumb strategically placed in Silas’s mouth so that he had less of a chance of actually biting me. Motherhood a balancing act?!? Whatever do you mean?
Upon my husband’s insistence (okay that’s not fair, he wouldn’t insist on a nap at all), we’re trying out the compassionate method of sleep training that somehow the books fail to mention. (Perhaps, because it’s oxymoronic! Although I haven’t thrown the towel in yet…) Blessed with a son who, without prompting, would stay not-so-happily but insistently awake from 8AM to midnight every day, we found ourselves caught between the rock of attachment parenting and the hard place of screaming it out. I was ready to let him cry, but my husband, for really good reasons that I won’t enumerate upon here, refused to let me do that. So we developed this other method of soothing him, that, as a side note, often required me to shove my arm as far between the slats of the crib that it will go so that Silas can chew on my fingers. This new method, in our ideal universe, is supposed to model self-soothing. Hmmm…
The method actually did work. For a week. Exactly. As did wearing him a sling, nursing him, and bouncing on the ball. But these babies are like diseases that evolve to resist antibiotics and vaccines… except their cute. And, I guess that’s why we love them. (I should mention that during the week that “the method” did work, I had visions, and I am only slightly ashamed to admit this, that we had hit on something big. It didn’t take sleep scholars and baby whisperers to figure this one out, I demised. It just took common sense. And, I was prepared, after I could prove the results with three months of sound napping, to take the Coolbeth-Songy sleep method to the press. I honestly could see myself on Oprah. But then, I always thought big. At least, it gave me bragging rights among other moms for a few days… sorry, moms.)
So, I’m sitting on the ball, eyes bugged out in much the same way that Hillary Clinton’s are when she disagrees with something Obama says in debate, and I decide that if I can’t have my lunch (I ate yesterday’s next to the crib, but soup just didn’t seem manageable on the ball), then, damn it!, I would have a beer. And, read. Of course.
Book reading, my savior and cure-all, has helped distill in me a sense of patience that I just don’t naturally have. Being constantly interrupted, having the inability to develop any sort-of agenda, throwing spontaneity and control out the window, may be one thing that is a given with motherhood. But, it takes a lot of time to adjust to that new haphazard way of living . Especially for a control monger like me. While meditation works for some. And just sheer cuddling for others. (I think cursing and spitting may also work for a few.) Books have been my answer. (Although they didn’t provide much solace when I found myself pulling over on the side of the highway and then proceeding to swing my son’s car seat back and forth through the air to try and sooth him through his screaming car seat strike! But, I guess, nothing works 100% of the time.)
After an hour of shhhhhing and reading and nursing my beer, I must admit I gave up. Yes, the four-month-old won.
So, I set to playing with him on the floor– which was, for both of us, much more satisfying than the old “please, please, go to sleep” song and dance. I took out his Happy Apple and some rattles and a blanket and made some funny faces. He laughed for awhile, chewed on some toys, rolled around a bit, and then yawned, and yawned again, and then with one swift snuggle in the chair, feel deeply asleep. For two hours. So, really, who’s the fool?
March 21st, 2008 at 2:44 am
My mother wrote this comment. For some reason, I didn’t approve the comment. I’ve reconsidered. Alas, here it is…
Em,
You cannot know how wonderful it is to read your writing in a published
place. This is what you were destined to do way back in elementary
school when you kept creating more and more ideas for kids’ parties and we
learned way too late that we should have written “The Kids’ Party
Book” and started your writing career off to a good start!
You also cannot know how fun it is to hear of your struggles with
Silas. Not that the struggles are fun, but since I am 9 hours away, pictures
(via e-mail) and now stories make each day of being away a little more
bearable. My love to Silas. He is one very special little guy.
Mom