Poppy slept in her crib last night. All night long. By herself.
Her nursery is on the opposite end of our modest apartment and you would have thought it was a hundred miles away, with the way I was sobbing in my pillow. It was a great night for her and she slept straight on through in her preferential sprawled out style, which was becoming increasingly difficult for her to do in her newborn bassinet. Still, did I mention that her nursery is two rooms away?
After she had been asleep in her crib for a few hours last night, Jacob and I were getting ourselves ready for bed. While he was finishing up the dishes in the kitchen, I walked into our bedroom, saw the empty bassinet next to the bed, and burst into tears. I walked back into the kitchen and buried my head in Jacob’s neck.
“What’s the matter, Honey?”
“She’s not in her bassinet”
[Insert more tears and lamenting here]
It probably didn’t help my state of mind that I had been perusing Flickr a few hours before and saw some delicious, wrinkled, new baby skin. Fresh, pink baby skin is my major, major weakness. Need something from me? Just wave some flaky, soft baby feet in front of my face and I’m all yours. I announced to a rather stunned Jacob that I was ready to have another baby. We agreed this was an irrational hallucination and my ovaries were playing tricks on me. No more babies for a long, long time. In fact, we are in the process of saving our dough to start the adoption process in a couple of years. By God’s grace, Poppy’s first sibling will be coming to us through adoption.
Needless to say, I am doing better this morning and stopped crying after I realized this transition from cradle-to-crib pales in comparison to upcoming milestones like first day of preschool, first sleepover and prom. Oh my God, I’ll just start on the panic attacks right now.
I found your blog through Apples for Poppy Anne :) I love this post, it is so true… all of those small and big milestones while they make you so proud and happy, at the same time can make you so sad! I have yet to move my son to his own room, and he’ll be 3 in September! We actually bought him a big boy bed, and the first night I contemplated putting him to sleep there I cried my eyes out and couldn’t do it lol. His big boy bed now rests up against our bed… the perfect solution for all :P
Your daughter is beautiful and I will be visiting your blog!
I knew as soon as I saw your title what you were going share. We haven’t had our baby yet, but the bassinet is in our room and I sometimes think… “oh, he/she is going to be going from here (my belly) to there (the bassinet).” And frankly, I am not sure what to think about that! lol.
What a sweet story – thank you for sharing.
oh man, do i know this. there are still nights when i wake up and just MISS my 2 1/2 year old. the one who’s sleeping on the other side of our wall. we’ve been “meaning” to get his new bedroom together so that we can move the baby out of our room and into the nursery for months…and i suspect that this is why we still have two gallons of unused green paint waiting for the job to get done.
wow…yep. I still think of that bassinet as “Bella’s” … and of all of the babes that have snuggled into that bed, she probably slept in it the shortest amount of time. You are true, these bittersweet moments are only off to a grand beginning…the longing to give them + grow them into greater independence…and then subsequently to weep and fret over it all…
Thank you all for your kind words. And for lamenting with me :) When mothers told me about this kind of stuff before, I thought I understood, but I didn’t really.
I am doing better today, although now I am trying to talk Jacob into getting us a family-sized bed in the near future :)
[...] *Update: Last night, without Poppy in the room, Jacob and I snuggled in bed and watched a movie. With the volume turned ALL THE WAY UP. I remember what things used to be like, and I love it. [...]
i so understand. and from my place on the timeline, i can only tell you it gets worse down the road. there is a dark side to the deep love a mother carries for her child. i thought i was one of those got-it-together mom’s with a life of my own and a plan for when everyone moves on. but i have found that mother-love never moves on. once a mother, always a mother. to a mom, your children, even when grown, have a place in your heart that nothing can replace. your relationship changes and you rejoice with new types of milestones – job, marriage, children – but there remains a aching sense of loss that defies words. you’re not supposed to talk about it, so you don’t. you’re not supposed to cry, but you do – secretly. And then you struggle to define what it means to be a mother – when your children no longer need a mother. but that is WAY down the road for you:) and i so empathize with you and the big move from bassinet to crib. that room feels SO far away doesn’t it? that’s why we had a family bed. the kids slept with us til they were about 3 – hana took a bit longer:) but i’m sorry i probably won’t be much good to you when poppy goes to college. I’ll still be sedated from Hana leaving home.
In my limited experience, the sadness of a child’s independence is not a dark side of mother-love. It’s just a part of it – a wall between two gardens. It’s only sadness to me, not loss. I don’t feel a sense of loss because Poppy has moved on from my side during the night. I am sad that she is done with her newborn-ness and is growing more independent everyday, but I still have those rich and tender moments of her newborn life that are ever real and can never be taken from me. Thank goodness, right?
I’ve only had a handful of difficult milestone moments so far, but for me, I always know in my heart that Poppy’s independence is what gives her the freedom to be who she was created to be. Yes, even starting with sleeping in her own room.