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The Bed Pig

Posted December 15, 2007

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. Guster is still waking up at least once every night. Rick and I are weary but hopeful that this madness will end by the time Gus leaves for college.

We swapped Guster's room with the much bigger guest room, something he's pretty pumped about. This decision came about when we realized that it made no sense whatsoever for Gus to have the smallest room in the house and have all his toys scattered around our general living space. Our den had become something like a Toys R Us warehouse, with a huge train table in the corner and three-tiered shelves full of books, musical instruments, building blocks and whatnot. All this crap now resides in his new room and he loves it. He's very proud.

We were hoping that he would sleep better in his new twin bed as opposed to his toddler grow-with-you bed that had its original infant's mattress and suspended him only inches off a dusty floor. His allergies might be the problem, I hypothesized. The dust and stuff. That's what's waking him up in the middle of the night! Pure genius. Get the kid off the floor. Problem solved.

So we went to the mattress store and picked out a comfy replacement. I thank God that Gus wasn't on one of the many showroom mattresses when he got that look on his face that meant pee was running down his legs. I scooped him up and told the salesman that we'd take that one over there and hustled the G-Man--or pee man, in this case--to the awaiting minivan. His accidents are few and far between but he sure knows how to pick the perfect venue.

So with a new bed and new room in place, we forged ahead into what we hoped would be more peaceful nights.

Wrong.

As I said, he wakes up anywhere from 1 to 5 times every night. Usually we hear the thump-thump-thump of his little feet coming down the hallway. Snoopy is usually his partner in crime, hanging by his neck from the crook of Guster's arm. If he comes in relatively close to when our alarm goes off, we pull him into our bed and he gets to stay. Such was the case this morning...although it's Saturday. He came up into our bed at 4:50 A.M.

I tried to sleep but could not because Gus is a crazy sleeper. He moves constantly, oftentimes turning around so his toes are pressing against my nostrils. Ever since Gus was a tiny baby, he has had this thing with hair. He twirls my hair when he's sleepy or when he's drinking his milk. It's almost hypnotic for him. He seems to go into a trance as he stares off into space and twists his finger around strands of my hair. Usually it's quite adorable. It loses some of it's charm at the crack of dawn, however.

This kid twirled and pulled my hair for two hours. I tried to get away from him. I rolled away from him but he stuck to me like glue, rolling right along with me. It was like something akin to water torture. He would not leave me alone. He grunted and kicked and pushed and pulled. I was reminded of the last two months of my pregnancy when this man-child inside me threatened to break my ribs on more than one occasion.

Bottom line: this kid cannot sleep with us like this. I told Rick that if he comes into our bed, I'm taking off for his. It's comfy and private with a water-resistant liner in case I have an accident.

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