Battle for the Bed

So, you may wonder where I've been for the past four months. Oh, I'm sure you assumed many things, like that we were out having many grand adventures, some of which involved miniature ponies wearing whimsical costumes ("Look!" we'd exclaim, "that horse is dressed like Dumbledore!" And we would laugh and laugh and laugh), or that my blog was so awesome that I was forced to shut down by the International Community of Curmudgeonly Bloggers, who feared being made to look bad by my total blog domination.

Sadly, neither of those things are true (although if there is such a thing as the ICCB, I am certainly on a dartboard somewhere in their favorite bar, which is probably something stupid, like a B-Dubs)-- quite frankly, it's just the mundanities of everyday life that have kept me from posting. And also, laziness.

But something has happened that I feel MUST BE COMMENTED UPON, because it threatens to tear apart the fabric of our family, and, dare I say it? That of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

Namely, Ben and I have decided to reclaim our bed.

This is not a proposition that Addie is taking lying down. (HA! I made a bed pun!) In fact, she has decided to take it standing up, screaming and brandishing her trusted bedtime companion Sleepy Time Monkey like the proverbial tin cup against the bars of her unjust bed cage. This is UNFAIR, she declares. It is my right as an American-- nay, as a HUMAN-- to sleep perpendicularly between you while jamming my feet as hard as I can into your kidneys and flailing my razor-sharp baby claws dangerously close to your eyes.

This is, as most things are, all my fault. I have been bringing Addie to bed with me since she was three days old, a decision I made based on a number of valid reasons, most of which revolved around me being far too lazy to get up and nurse her in her actual nursery, and also, there is a giant TV in my bedroom, which allowed me to nurse AND catch old episodes of Family Matters, which really just proves that I am an excellent multi-tasker.

And this plan worked amazingly well for the first five months-- we snuggled, we bonded, and most importantly, we both actually slept.

But around six months, Ben and I decided that perhaps it was time to make the move. I had, after all, forced him practically at knifepoint to assemble her crib two months before she was born, a maneuver that now seemed stupidly hyper-prepared. And at six months, she took to the crib fairly well. That is, until she started teething, at which point, she didn't take to anything well except screaming and occasionally attempting to bite me on the face, Tyson-style. So, back to the bed she went.

We tried again around eight months, and again met a degree of success-- a night or two of crying, followed by a blissful month or so of peaceful adults-only slumber (not as dirty as it sounds). But again we were thwarted, this time by Ben's trip to Japan, followed by a subsequent mild but inexorably long-lasting flu.

This flu just ended on Saturday, and by God, it's time to take back the night.

Addie, grown drunk with vomit-based power, has begun shoving me to the very edge of the bed-- not a metaphor here, but the actual edge, where I have woken on more than one occasion with my face hanging about six inches from the floor, the rest of my body perched precariously on the meager foothold left for me in the bed proper. Ben has been excised from the bed altogether, his normal space usurped by her kangaroo-kicking legs. I don't know how a person who is only 31 inches tall can occupy so much space, but she has made an art of it.

But no more! Tonight is the night we begin the Battle for the Bed, and this time, we will WIN. I know this because I made this CNN-style graphic in order to pump myself up, not unlike that used during Operation Desert Storm:

How can I possibly lose after all the valuable seconds I put into creating this?

Right now, my target slumbers blissfully after only 45 minutes of protest, but I know she is only marshaling her energy for an explosive late-night barrage of sadness that no loving mother can withstand. But I must harden my heart for the time being, my eyes on the prize: a dawn that does not find me with a baby's fingers jammed up my nose.

There is no Addie, only Zuul

Addie has begun speaking in a monster voice.

We're not entirely sure when this transition from normal voice to monster voice began-- I definitely remember noticing it shortly before we left for the UP for Christmas-- but it has really ratcheted up in intensity since the beginning of the new year, and quite frankly, it's a wee bit spooky. She'll just be sitting there, playing with her stackable rings (or, to be more precise, the cone that holds the stackable rings on, which is far more thrilling than the rings themselves, perhaps because of its dual purpose as a whacking stick), talking normally, when suddenly she issues forth a stream of evil-sounding monster talk: "I love you, stackable ring holder, harbinger of the dark lord Satan!"

Tigger dared cross Monster Addie

Life on fast forward

I was pregnant forever.

I mean, seriously, forever. I got pregnant in February 2009 with my son, John Henry, whom we lost at twenty weeks in June. Then two months later, I was pregnant again, this time with Addie. So other than those two months, I was pregnant for thirteen and a half months between that February and May, 2010. Essentially, I had the gestational period of an elephant.

And did those months ever drag by-- especially the ones with Addie, worried, waiting to see what would happen next. It was as if time had simply stopped moving. I did what I could to fill them-- mainly, I spent them obsessively comparing Addie to whatever sized fruit she was supposed to be at the time (a blueberry! A butternut squash!) and forcing Ben to look at pictures of the little Duggar baby, pointing out that if Addie came 14 weeks early, it wouldn't be that bad. The clock became my enemy-- is this thing out of batteries? Is it really only three? How could a day last so long?

But Addie managed to cling to the safety of her little bachelorette pad until 39 weeks, and ever since then, its as if the mouth of time's lazy river has opened up to one of those waterslides that shoot you straight down, no matter how desperately you try to slow yourself, jamming your feet against the sides. Wanting the ride to last a little longer.

I feel now like one of those comically sped-up Benny Hill skits, everyone running through open doors, chasing each other with rolling pins. Work is just two hour intervals between pumpings. Our time in the evenings with Addie is a blur of playtime, cereal, bath and bed. Our time after she falls asleep, a series of tasks-- lunches made, clothes picked out, items washed and put away, and then we collapse.

Addie will be six months old next week, and I find myself longing for that time when life felt so impossibly slow. I think about all the women around the world who conceived the day Addie was born-- they would be six months pregnant now, the finish line in sight. Has this time felt so slow for them? Could I get them to trade me?

She's so big now-- already outgrowing her nine-month clothes, more and more curious about the world around her. I know that there are so many more adventures ahead-- the walking, the talking, the dress-up time and the first day of school-- but I'm not ready to race there just yet.

Tonight, instead of hurrying through our bedtime routine, I decided to lay down with Addie while she fell asleep. She snuggled up next to me, her deep sigh reverberating against my chest, and for just a moment, I felt like things had paused.

Addie's in Vogue

I think it is fair to say that as a child, I was never, ever, ever cool. I think this picture of me, circa 5th grade, will testify:

The photograph mostly cuts off my giant denim purse, which was, no joke, usually filled with large compendiums of Herman cartoons. Because I was a fifth-grader who effing loved one-panel comic strips about loose-jowled eldery men and their kerfrumpety wives.

So it pleases me to no end that, even at five months of age, Addie is already unspeakably cool. I gauge this how I gauge most things in my life-- how many accessories she has that have also been spotted as the accessories of celebrity babies.

For instance, I nearly peed my pants when I saw that she has the exact same blanket as Sandra Bullock's son:

 

 

Also, witness the awesomeness that is her having Sophie the Giraffe, just like whatever this child of Nicole Richie is named:

Clearly, Addie has more style and panache at five months than I managed to garner in all of my 31 years on this planet. Although let me give myself a little credit-- it's not as if she hand-picked these items herself (although to be fair, she actually received the Aden and Anais blanket as a gift from the awesome Denise Philipsen). Does this mean that I am just as stylish and au courant as Sandra and Nicole?

Obviously, yes. Not bad for a girl with a purse full of Hermans.

Excretion Excursion

Before Addie, it would have seemed unthinkable to go to work with another person's vomit on my shirt. Now, it's just a question of how much vomit is acceptable.

In the past five months, I have been pooped on, vomited on, and spat on. I have continued to wear pants soaked with another person's pee for a good three hours after the deed occurred, simply because I knew if I put on different pants they would just be besotted with some other bodily fluid. And once, while holding the baby over my head in the classic airplane pose, she vomited directly into my open mouth.

I was prepared, through years of bad sitcoms with babies tacked on at the end as a desperate ratings grab, for this sudden onslaught of excretions. But what I did not really expect was my total okayness with it. I gave up on burp cloths after the first day or two of Addie's life, too addled with exhaustion or fear of squeezing the baby too hard, a la Lenny's rabbit, to remember to keep one handy. It was what it was: I was going to reek of spoiled milk and pale urine for the foreseeable future.

Tonight, Addie blew a raspberry for the first time-- not just your run of the mill bubble blowing, but a full-on, pursed lip buzzing, leaving my face slicked with a patina of spit. And instead of being grossed out, or running for the washcloth, I just grinned. Because it's really hard to be disgusted by anything that comes from someone so cute. Not that her shit doesn't stink-- just that it's hers.

A mid-term report card

Addie had her four month well-baby check-up the other day, where we were updated on her latest stats-- at nearly eighteen pounds, she is in the 97th percentile for her weight, and at 25 inches, she's in the 67th percentile for her height. The doctor was impressed with her motor skills, particularly her ability to sit unsupported, something other four month old babies only lie around and dream about while they flail pointlessly on their tummy time mats. She also has a giant head for her age, which only goes to enhance my theory that she is some sort of Superbaby that will grow to enslave the entire human race (in the cutest way possible, of course).

So with these stats in mind, I thought I'd review her progress in some other areas as well:

Spoon feeding: B

She definitely gets the concept of spoon feeding. She lunges for the spoon like some sort of crazed lunatic, her mouth agape. It's what to do with the cereal once it is on-board that is the problem. Right now, her solution appears to be to shove it all out of mouth onto her bib with her tongue. But at least the fundamentals are there.

Bouncer Usage: A+

 One would think, watching Addie in action in her bouncer, that I had birthed some sort of weird, half-human half-rabbit, sort of like the one in Donnie Darko, only not terrifying or Patrick Swayze-killing.

Rolling over: B

She is so close to rolling over that I vaguely suspect she's already done it for the Day Care People, based on their very evasive answers when I ask about her progress. She hasn't yet pulled it off at home without our help, but if I find out she's been dogging it this whole time, she is in for a world of hurt. And by hurt in this context I really just mean hugs.

Crib sleeping: C-

Addie doesn't seem to know what to do with the extra room in the crib, so she compensates by rotating herself until she's laying across the width of the crib mattress as opposed to the length. Cute, but problematic down the road, as I'm assuming her future spouse won't be very appreciative of this particular sleep position.

Staying a tiny baby forever: F

No matter how much I explain to her that I need her to remain a teeny tiny baby for the rest of her life, Addie willfully continues growing and expanding her repertoire of skills. It's almost as if she intends to fully grow up and eventually leave my house one day. But I expect her to straighten out and stop growing any day now.

Addie Alive!

When I was a little girl, it devastated my mom that I wasn't into baby dolls. I was more of a fashion doll girl-- Barbie, Lady Lovely Locks (yeah, I just trotted out Lady Lovely Locks, let the reminiscing begin!), anything that had hair that could be brushed, braided, and eventually cut into an extremely unflattering female gym teacher bob. But for some reason, baby dolls just never interested me-- why would I want a toy whose main purpose was to pee on me?

Now that Addie is here, I realize that, even with the fantastical advances in fake infant behavior (they poop now! THEY POOP!), perhaps the main reason baby dolls disinterested me is because they did not accurately depict the many varied actions an actual baby can possess. For instance, if there were an Addie baby doll (which there should be, and which I would market as Addie Alive!), it would be capable of all of the following real-life dolly actions:

• Viciously punching itself in the sides as if it were King Kong
• Super kung-fu hair hank death grip
• Intermittent release of noxious butt fumes
• Random heart-melting sighs of contentedness, especially after the release the aforementioned fumes
• Stealth sock removal skills
• Vicious head-butting action
• Laser-precision spit up aim (particularly when held overhead in a game of Superbaby)

Actually, when I put it that way, it sounds like Addie Alive! would make a much better action figure than a doll. Except for the heart-melting sighs. But I think the ass stink more than balances that out.

Addie Alive! may be hazardous to anyone under the age of three, pets that dare to wander into her range of motion, or people who enjoy having their clothes unsoiled by bodily fluids. Do not use Addie Alive! if you require more than six hours of sleep a night. All accessories, medical bills, foodstuffs and college tuition sold separately at outrageous prices. Allow nine months for delivery.