The Truly Bad Night

Last weekend Jeff went off to a local zendo for a meditation retreat, leaving me alone at home with Melina for the weekend. It was the first weekend we had spent alone together, so I decided we should go down and visit the folks in Monmouth and head down to Corvallis and Eugene to catch up with some friends.

Well.

Things started going wrong the night before Jeff was due to leave. For some reason, Melina woke up three times during the night, and I was already pretty exhausted. We woke up around 7:30 and managed to get down to Monmouth and Corvallis without mishap, but I could tell Melina was getting overtired. She fell asleep in the car on the way back to Monmouth and slept until 5:00.

So, just in case you're not tuned into these things, these are the factors I had going against me from the beginning:

Da-da away. (Jeff usually puts Melina to bed).
Unusual sleeping arrangements.
Mom exhausted.
Excitement of seeing grandma and grandpa.
Late nap.
Generally overtired.
Just gave up the binky.
Going through a "difficult phase" of many tantrums.

I started the process of putting Melina down at 8:00 p.m. In retrospect, we should have stayed up and watched the late movie, because Melina was completely wired at 8:00. But I plowed through several books, laid Melina on my chest, turned out the light, and waited. No luck.

At 10:00 I had tried just about everything but the failsafe: driving her in the car. We got in the car and headed over to a gas station somewhere between Monmouth and Independence to fill the tank, since my car was running on fumes. Several gas stations were closed (I didn't know gas stations ever DID close), but I finally found one and filled up. And then my car wouldn't start. Instead, it whined several times; Melina declared that she didn't like that noise. The gas station attendant came over and tried to push the car so I could pop the clutch and start that way, but since we were in a level parking lot he couldn't get much speed and it didn't work. Another gas station attendant came over with her car and together they jumped my car. (I just had to jumpstart my car a few weeks back after Melina left the interior light on all day - she is growing very familiar with the sound of a failed battery).

After this I drove around in the country a bit and she was out pretty quickly. But driving in the country with a questionable battery is not very relaxing (and the country around Monmouth is very dark and sparsely populated), so I turned around and went back to my parents' house pretty quickly - probably too quickly. In retrospect.

I knew that the game was up when I laid Melina down on the bed and she asked for water. I had left her water bottle in the car, of course. Mom went and got her a glass of water, which I knew wasn't going to work for Melina. Melina promptly spilled it in the crib, then pitched a fit because the crib was wet.

Again, I tried laying down with her, calming her down, singing, the whole works. By this time I was about to lose it myself. After about half an hour I decided to try the car again. This time we went for a longer drive, and Melina was completely sacked out when I came home and put her on the bed (the crib was still wet).

My friend Becky has a term - "rotisserie baby" - for what it's like to sleep next to a toddler, especially in a double bed. For the next two or three hours, I laid awake, alternately trying to keep Melina from falling off the bed and trying to keep from being pummeled by her feet. Around 2:30 I tried to pick her up and put her in the crib. And she woke up.

This time, all hell broke loose. It was a full-on tantrum, and I was beyond the end of my rope. In the end, I had to cave in and ask my mom to help, and hover outside the bedroom while Melina screamed within. It was one of those cases where nothing but "crying it out" was going to work, and I didn't have the mental fortitude to do it myself. My mom grimly and efficiently sat next to the porta-crib observing Melina's rising and falling levels of hysteria. Finally, finally, finally, Melina went to sleep. (Thanks, mom). I laid on the couch, still wired, until sunrise; at around 5:00 a.m. Melina hopped out of the crib and padded out to find me laying on the couch. I brought her back to bed and thankfully we both managed to fall asleep for a few hours.

It wasn't quite over the next day; I cancelled my plans to go to Eugene and decided to head home instead. On the drive home Melina screamed bloody murder from Salem to Wilsonville, until I finally pulled over because I was afraid I was going to ram someone's car out of frustration. I calmed Melina down in a motel parking lot and she promptly fell asleep when we took off again. She napped for an hour and a half and then had another screaming tantrum when she woke up.

Oh, and did I mention Jeff was a at a *meditation* retreat?

Given the previous 24 hours, I was dreading Saturday night's entertainment. To my surprise, Melina fell asleep easily after the usual routine and didn't wake up once during the night. She slept perfectly, and has slept perfectly ever since. We are all sane again. Thank God.

Bye-bye binky

The binky is dead. Long live the binky!

A few weeks ago (a few weeks after Melina's third birthday), the Binky Fairy came and took Melina's binkies away, leaving a few nice gifts in return. (After many weeks of predicting the Binky Fairy's visit, we solemnly rounded them up, put them in a brass teapot, and left the teapot on the porch. In the morning, two Thomas train engines and a purple bouncy-balloon had miraculously appeared). The binkies themselves will take a nice vacation before being assigned to new babies around the world.

Melina took the transition surprisingly well. I was dreading it with most of my being, but there was only one bad night (unless you count the Bad Night several weeks later, which I will write about in a minute). Melina was sad on and off for about 24 hours; after that she squared herself to the new reality and marched on in her inimitable Melina way.

By the way, part of the impetus for this transition was a trip to the Dentist, who seemed irritated that we had allowed Melina to keep the binky so long. He pointed out how her mouth was being deformed and assured us we would need orthodontic work. (Other than that, the first real dentist visit was a walk in the park!).

Despite the Binky Fairy's thorough efforts to round up all the binkies in the house, I found one on my bedside table about two weeks later and found the all-time favorite "lellow" binky on the kitchen counter yesterday. I have no idea where it came from, but luckily I found them before Melina did.

Now if I could only get her to fall asleep in the car....