With junior’s impending delivery creeping up, Kevin and I had been discussing whether we wanted to brave the unknown and work Caleb out of the crib to avoid having to purchase a new one… but with SO many additional unknown’s looming on the horizon, we thought cutting the kid some slack and leaving one constant in his life might be appreciated. Well, Caleb seemed to have plans of his own. About a week ago, he started balking at us putting him in his crib, indicating he’d rather sleep in the twin bed in his room. Without a gate, I couldn’t comply… for the past 12 months at least, I’ve watched what can only be described as ‘contact sleeping’, where Caleb and his crib would wage a nightly war to see how many sides of the crib he could run into while sleeping.
The stage was set for Saturday night… I purchased the gate, and armed with the information gleaned from “Nanny 911”, on how to teach a toddler to stay in his bed, I was ready! Certain he would test his new found boundary and follow me out the door after books, I let him know big boys got three tries but if he couldn’t stay in his bed, I would have to put him back in his crib. Imagine my surprise when our first attempt was a SUCCESS!!! My surprise was immediately tempered by my overwhelming humility 😉 where I was the obvious hero, and my sheer parenting genius had triumphed! My ego was only slightly deflated when around 10pm we heard a telling ‘thrump’ upstairs, waited the requisite 10 seconds to move, sure tears were to follow…. Silence…
In retrospect, I’m able to concede I was lucky as hell, and am thanking my lucky stars for the blessing that is Caleb and his demeanor in accepting change, holding out hope that with all the change yet to come, he’ll navigate it with as much composure.