Humor...And Just at the Right Moment!

I promised myself last week that I was going to make time to blog as it is one very helpful way to account for a lot of the experiences that we are having as a family. I must say that I have been one to 'edit' what I do or do not post on here. Part of my reasoning has been privacy for Jonatan and giving him the option down the road to tell the more intimate parts of his story that he does or does not want to share; admittedly then I have tried to avoid recapping some of our tougher moments as a family as well.

So, tonight is a different night; not that I am being any less censored in my sharing, but realized that tonight's parenting chapter is probably not very unique in that every parent occasionally finds themself reevaluating how they have chosen to parent.

I am sure we all as parents have had those disasterous bedtime moments with our children. Tonight was one of those nights for us! Shortly after we had met Jonatan we had discovered that he was not used to sleeping in a bed on his own. "No problem", we thought, as we had already talked about the pros and cons of the family bed. Mind you, Dave and I do not come from families that even remotely practice the family bed. And so began our adventure of life and the family bed with Jonatan.

Among the many lessons during our stay in Colombia was one of navigating a double bed with three bodies. Ugh! Pereira wasn't so bad, because we had two double beds...Bogota was a completely different story...in desperation, one night, we had actually tried to switch Jonatan to a crib, but with no success. So, we continued. With our arrival home, we eagerly welcomed our faithful queen bed and couldn't believe we had managed nights in a double bed! Oh the stories we could tell! Maybe one day when Jonatan is old enough to give approval! (smile)

Sometime in August, though, we moved a twin bed into our room and butted it up against our bed...and this is where Jonatan has been since. The clincher is that we have gotten ourselves into a bit of a predicament in that we have allowed Jonatan to get used to having us with him until he falls asleep. And, to top it off, bedtime (after lights out) can take a REALLY long time for him to settle. Recently, we had concluded that our well-meaning efforts at staying present and helping him settle were actually doing him more harm than good. Overall he is doing well and has been adjusting remarkably; he occasionally awakens at night for a diaper change, but on the whole is a great sleeper. So, we are beginning to 'wean' him off of needing Papa and Mama to fall asleep. Tonight was our first night and 'oh my!'. As a camp director and former youth pastor, I used to hear parents talk about how they felt some of their parenting was actually creating 'monsters' in their little ones...granted I don't believe that they actually saw their children as monsters, just that they themselves were probably causing some or all of the behavior issues they were experiencing on occasion. At any rate, I now can commiserate with these folks. Tonight felt like a horrible start to a hopeful transition to Jonatan's independence in getting to sleep.

I am not someone who typically reads email forwards, although tonight was one of those exceptions. My sister had sent out a forward entitled "Mom Song", so I thought you all may enjoy. It was a gift of humor in the end of a very frustrating bedtime. I hope you enjoy, and thank you Jen for sending it our way.


The Mom Song from Northland Video on Vimeo.