#bedtimebattle

He holds hands and spoons and nestles, settles his soft, sweet-smelling baby shampooed head under my nose, warms my heart and our bed... 

  A puppet of routine now. Bath time and then bedtime, with some slight variations, and he crawls up into the bed and prepares himself for (a nighttime nurse and) sleep. Easy does it. 

  Except that he's crawling up into OUR bed every night. All but putting himself to sleep in OUR room. Which would be acceptable, I suppose, if we could then transfer him to his room without him knowing it, and all sleep happily ever after. But every time we cross the threshold of he and Izzo's room with him, the boy -- no matter how deeply he's sleeping -- comes alive, like a toy doll whose eyes open automatically when you sit her up, a built-in mechanism. And then it begins. The belly-aching and protesting, the screams and curses, the wretched painful sobs and pointed shouts. "GET ME OUT OF HERE, YOU AWFUL, AWFUL PARENTS!" he screams in baby, which sounds mostly like this: "MOMMY! MAAAAAHMMY! BAHHHHMMY! MOMMMMMY! MOMMEEEEEE! MOMMY!!!!" 

  He'll empty the dresser drawer he can reach, fling his T-shirts and socks all over the room. He'll fire his binky at sleeping (somehow, usually) Izzo. He's stomp and rattle his cage. He's started jumping up and down in there, and he's starting to try to pull himself up and over the railing. (The day is coming.) The other night, Hamlet walked in and Arthur was wielding a bat. One of those mini-wooden bats you get at a ballgame? Not sure how he'd come by it, to be honest, but Hamlet retreated, in semi-terrified amusement. "He's going to hit me!" Arthur didn't, and I took away the bat without issue before he managed to fling it across the room at his slumbering sister, but... 

  Arthur won that night. And he won just about every night last week. Which means he goes, in the blink of an eyelash, from aggravated, aggrieved beast to a small, snoozing Gandhi the very moment he knows he's won, which is the moment you put your hands beneath his armpits to lift him.

  Months ago, Dr. Green promised three consecutive "cry it out" nights would do the trick. They didn't. Though, to be honest, we've had some success by simply staking him out, staying beside him until he falls back asleep, holding his hand through his prison bars (and, often, waking up on the floor an hour or two later, my arm as asleep as the baby.) There have been nights -- four? five? -- when he slept all the way through in his own bed. And then, inevitably, something has happened -- the stitches, last week's illness -- and he'd end up in our bed again. And, in the aftermath, most nights we're too tuckered-out to put up a sufficient fight, so, again and again, the little dude wins and I end up getting to snuggle up with my sweet, sweet cuddly monster. 

  Izzo somehow manages to sleep through most of this, but she seems to be picking up on plenty else. She knows how to operate the TV better than I do now. Her vocabulary is growing with all her reading. She's constantly asking me, "What does ____ mean?"

  I love picking her up from school because she comes be-bopping out of there full of energy, bursting to tell me about some fairy game gone amiss or something they learned in class, sometimes a song. Couple weeks ago, she told me they'd learned about college, and that going to college was important if you didn't want to work at McDonald's. Also: Mrs. Sway said there were parties every night at college. (Picture constant cake and pinatas and presents!) She'd decided that day that she'd like to attend the University of Oregon because, well, she wanted to be like me. Heart-warming enough, but then she told me how she and Kiera had played "college" at recess and while Kiera had chosen her big sister's name in this game, Izzo had picked to play as "Mirjam." And... her boyfriend's name was "Arthur." Confusing. But cool.

  Most of the time, Izzo turns the corner walking side by side with one of the other girls in class, both of them usually engaging in what seems like parallel conversation, talking at each other until they break apart toward their parents or picker-uppers, waving or saying "bye" at the last second as though it's an afterthought.

  Sometimes, though, Izzo appears on her own, or not on her own, because she's engaged in a whole 'nother, very animated conversation... with herself. She's one of two kids who I spot doing this, who, in the middle of everything, appear very much in their own worlds, seemingly oblivious to everything around them. There's another little boy who does it too, and has been doing it all year. Uninhibited still at this age, they'd seem peculiar or crazy if they were older, because they're quite obviously someplace else, making sound effects and riding very dramatic story archs that kinda make you wanna know what the heck is happening, what's so exciting, what, what, what?

  Often, when she's with her buddies, Izzo'll see me from yards away and come charging to give me a hello-again hug. But when she's in her bubble, I'll watch her navigate the sea of bodies between us as if no one else is there, almost as if she's hypnotized, and I'll be sort of be surprised that she makes it all the way to me, that she'll snap out of it then, look up and say, so matter-of-factly, "Hi, Mom."

  "Hi, Izzo. What's up?"

  "Nothing. School was good today -- orange car!"

  And that's that.

  My offspring are nuts. But then, the only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.

  And, hey, for real though: Thanks all for the birthday love, you guys. On the Facebook or in real life. Even as a grown-up, it's a healthy boost, nice wishes from nice people for a few days. Does a body good. As did a Dodger game with my colleagues, great seats (hooked up by our boss) and some kid-free social time for the first time in what felt like a long time (made possible by Susan Barnus and Hamlet). Whew. Whew!

  And, that is that.

  Love.