That is, of course, until Knock-A-Doodle-Doo shatters our peaceful slumber at the glue-eyed hour of 2 AM.
"Knock-A-Doodle-Doo" is my new nickname for Bo, our youngest, who at barely 19 months hurled herself over and out of her crib twice after making herself puke from crying, rendering said crib useless. I literally cried myself when this happened, realizing that her force could no longer be contained and I would no longer have a safe spot to store her when I do those ridiculous extra-Mommy things like "shower before work." MP was much older when we moved her to a big girl bed, and she wasn't prone to create devastation wherever she went. Leaving her alone and unshackled in a room at night did not pose major health or sanity risks. You can leave Bo in a padded room and she'd find a way to rip the stuffing out of the walls and choke on it. She is far too devious and hell-bent to leave alone for more than 30 seconds; her other nicknames include "Destructor," "Holy Fuck What Did You Do Now ," and occasionally "Demon Spawn."
Knock-A-Doodle-Doo can occur at any time of the night between the hours of when I go to bed and right before my alarm goes off at 5:50 AM. It begins with a somewhat patient knocking, rat-a-tat-tat on the door, that awakes me from whatever paltry sleep I've managed to patch together. Bo sleeps on a mattress on the floor because nobody trusts her on any sort of elevated platform. Even with a mattress she has ended up stuck under the defunct crib in the middle of the night, having rolled her way across the room. So first the almost polite knocking. And then the plaintive cry: "Mommmmmy." And then more knocking, a bit more deliberate now, like "come get me Woman" type knocking, peppered with a few more "Mooommmmyyyyyys." And then the frenzy will begin--screams of anger, furious knocking. I lie in bed trying to burrow under pillows in the fruitless hope that Knock-A-Doodle-Doo will realize the error of her ways (IT'S FUCKING THREE IN THE MORNING!!!) and go back to her mattress on the floor. This never happens. The knocking will just eventually set the dog to bark, and then the husband to awake, and then Big Sister MP to groggily emerge from her room to announce that "Bo woke me up" and pee fourteen hundred times. And procure fourteen hundred more "night time drinks." And Knock-A-Doodle-Doo will have won again. She will be stationed happily in our bed, doing her thing.
Errr. Yeah.
More on that later. (It's a whole slew of posts, her thing.)
(Below: Knock-A-Doodle-Doo looking Impish as she contemplates what fresh hell she will bring.)
Going through Bedtime Ritual is like planning, organizing, and attending a wedding every night. There are multiple parts and chances for things to go abysmally wrong and time panics ("holy SHIT it's nine fourteen I will have NO TIME TO WATCH HOUSEWIVES ON TIVO") and crossing of fingers. Each child's bedtime is really a perfect storm--all components have to come together for the night to run smoothly.
After bath and brushing teeth and running around naked like a madwoman and jumping on beds and throwing blankets around and reading books and doing workbook, It takes MP a bit to get to bed--first, she has to whisper the same thing to me that she whispers every night--that she wants party hats at her birthday. I agree and say I want them also. Then, she tells me how she wants Fudgie the Whale ice cream cake at her birthday; once again, I agree; my favorite, which I have sneakily convinced her is also her favorite so that I can have it twice a year (Random is in hot pursuit of this title, pushing his "Strawberry Cream Cheese Torte" on her like a drug dealer; the crux of the problem there is that I have to make that dish, and it's not easy. Plus, who doesn't love a frozen whale with chocolate crunchies?)
After all that adorable nonsense, she says "If you have to go downstairs..." and I finish with "that's just for a minute," which is essentially a load of hogwash since I definitely go downstairs for longer than a minute. And then as a finale she'll ask if I'm wearing socks, which unless it's January I'm definitely not, so then she has to take off her socks. We do this every night. If we forget a part, or if I don't sufficiently hug and kiss her, she will come into our bedroom where I'm putting Bo to sleep and yell-whisper until I run through the whole thing with her properly.
Sometimes I'll have just gotten Bo to sleep when MP comes barging in with her demand that I wear socks because if I don't we will not be twins. Or, her revelation that her spider Silly Bandz "SHINES IN THE DARK" and isn't that SO COOL, SHE DIDN'T KNOW THAT!
I especially delight in waking MP up in the morning. She is already a surly teenager in that regard; she refuses to wake up unless it's five am on the weekend. Her sister has sat on her head before to wake her up (Bo is a brute as well as a menace) and it did not work. The only time MP is remotely tired is in the mornings that I have work. Usually it is as if she has snorted an entire box of sugar.
Below: Beautiful MP ready to bounce off any available surface
****************
I have two incredibly sweet, funny, entertaining, beautiful girls who make me laugh all the time. I am the luckiest person I know. Each girl entered my life in a way I never would have imagined, at exactly the right time. I went through six years of severe infertility before we adopted MP, and I would do it all over again if I knew how it would turn out.
I have so many things to write about that it almost seems impossible to know where to begin. Writing about their sleep habits seemed as good a place as any; stay tuned for adoption updates, Bo's thing, Interviews with MP, videos of MP singing American-Idol style, pictures, and all kinds of maudlin accounts on motherhood. Oh yeah, and I'm also going to try to do Fashion Friday once in a while, which is where you allow your child to choose an outfit and take her picture (Good Lord, you have no idea how that might go in this house), Product Placement Day (where I will gush on and on about a product I adore because I am a product junkie), Trash TV, and Adventures in Occasionally Drunken Vegetarian Cooking.
Thank you so much for being here and for the welcome back. It feels really good to be here again, and I hope to meet all of you all over again very soon.
I missed you!!!!!!!!! Glad you're back.
Posted by: Lila | 05/24/2010 at 11:12 PM
Welcome back. Or better yet, Welcome Home.
And, OMG, MP is soooo big now (and yes, I hate it when people say that to me about my little, too - like I don't know it already).
Great post and I can't wait to read more.
Posted by: HubeiMama | 05/24/2010 at 11:26 PM
It is so good to have you back! It is also so good to see how big MP face again... I have wondered about you guys so many times through the years. I can't wait to hear more about Bo, she is so beautiful! She sounds a lot like my little boy who learned how to climb out of his crib at 12 month!
Posted by: Jenna | 05/24/2010 at 11:53 PM
OMG! I am so glad to see you back. When I saw you pop up in my feed reader, I couldn't believe it! Both girls are beautiful. I started reading you long before MP, long before I started TTC myself, have many fond memories of knitting for MP, and so seeing you is very much like welcoming an old friend home! You were missed. Now if Chez Miscarriage and Hardscrabble would ever come back too, THAT would be like Christmas :)
Posted by: wavybrains | 05/25/2010 at 02:42 AM
MP and Bo are absolutely beautiful. I'm so glad you're back & writing about them & yourself.
Posted by: OmegaMom | 05/25/2010 at 02:46 AM
Wait, what?!!! I nearly had an attack when Cheek showed up in my feed reader. Welcome back, my friend!! We're in Hawaii for the week and our internet connection is hideous, but as soon as we get home I'm going to settle down and get caught up. Yay!
Posted by: M3 | 05/25/2010 at 03:10 AM
Oh! Oh Oh Oh!
I am so so happy you're back.
Thank you!
Posted by: Anna | 05/25/2010 at 04:02 AM
Your girls are so gorgeous! I lurked on your blog long ago, and it's really good to have you back. Looking forward to hearing about your adventures!
Posted by: porpoise | 05/25/2010 at 05:45 AM
OMG you have the two most bee-YOO-tiful girls EVER! So glad you're back!
Posted by: MFA Mama | 05/25/2010 at 09:19 AM
The girls are adorable!! Sounds like you have quite the pair!! :-)
Posted by: Heather | 05/25/2010 at 10:03 AM
Oh, how I know the danger of any tiny variation from the bedtime ritual -- woe betide the poor parent who forgets some crucial bit of it!
My own little Knock-a-doodle-doo slept in bed with me until he was 3.5 because I got tired of the 2 am wake-up calls, so I feel your pain there, too (he did grow out of it, though -- so there's hope!).
So glad to have you back!
Posted by: Teri | 05/25/2010 at 11:24 AM
Welcome back - and your girls are gorgeous!
Posted by: Carly | 05/25/2010 at 11:50 AM
Wow, it's so crazy seeing MP as a little girl and not a baby. How wonderful. :)
Posted by: Andrea | 05/25/2010 at 01:59 PM
I am so glad you are back!! I missed you! Welcome back, I look forward to reading. The girls are both beautiful.
Posted by: Pam | 05/25/2010 at 02:25 PM
Welcome back!! So glad you decided to write again.
Posted by: Maureen | 05/25/2010 at 02:53 PM
It IS you! Hooray! Can't believe how big everyone is. Looking forward to catching up all over again....
Posted by: After Words (fka Brooklyn Girl) | 05/25/2010 at 03:22 PM
I never commented when you were writing as you waited for MP but I read you faithfully and am so glad you're back. Your girls are so beautiful.
Posted by: Tommie | 05/25/2010 at 03:42 PM
You made my day. I love Google Reader for letting me know that you were back!
Posted by: Sam | 05/25/2010 at 05:32 PM
Very happy you are back! Can't wait to read all about the family, product placement, sleep patterns or whatever you decide to write about.
Posted by: carrie | 05/25/2010 at 11:54 PM
Holy wow, welcome back!
Posted by: anne nahm | 05/26/2010 at 12:21 AM
Welcome back!
Posted by: Sami | 05/26/2010 at 01:24 PM
Hi! I'm glad you are back. Your girls are beautiful!
Posted by: lb | 05/26/2010 at 09:08 PM
So excited you are back! I missed you. Also, have you considered a crib tent? I have a 23 mo with a big head and he was making me sick with his leaning over the rail (over the hard wood floor). A few protests at first, but the extra year in the crib is priceless. So not ready for him to be out of the crib.
Posted by: Shelly | 05/26/2010 at 10:09 PM
So glad you're back!!!!
Posted by: liz | 05/27/2010 at 01:36 PM
So glad I kept you in my reader- welcome back!
Posted by: Olivia | 05/27/2010 at 02:20 PM