20 June 2008

Still My Baby

Apparently when I was a little girl, I didn't like it too much when people referred to me as "oh, what a cute little girl".  I've been told that I would quickly reply, "I'm a BIG GIRL!", sometimes not so nicely and to my mama's dismay.

Mama liked to refer to me as her baby, and well, you can guess how that went over.  Finally she and I came to an arrangement with the help of Daddy.  I would be Daddy's "Big Girl" and Mama's "Baby".  For some reason, I think that I remember not being completely pleased with the deal back then, but I'm starting to understand now what was really going on....

This move has been an adjustment for all of us, mostly in very good ways; but one thing was harder on me than I expected.

For almost a whole year now, Isaiah has slept in the same room with us.  Usually this was no big deal, though occasionally we wished that the arrangement was a little different, like when he would wake up in the middle of the night or at 5:30am.  It's really hard to let a child "cry it out" when he's 5 feet away, so we got to have a lot of extra snuggle time in the past year.

Well, in our new place, Isaiah can have his own room.  As I packed up our old room, I thought how wonderful it would be for him to have his own space, and for us to have ours.  I talked to him about how much fun he could have in his own room, trying to help with the transition as much as possible.  The first night in our new place was pretty chaotic, so Isaiah got to sleep with us one last time.  The second night however began the tragedy.

We tried to make his bedtime routine as much the same as always, with the major difference of ending up in a different room.   Thomas played with him and sang to him; I sang to him and rocked him as always; but as soon as I said the normal "bedtime words" Isaiah had a complete meltdown.  He kept looking at me and looking at the door and clutching me tighter and tighter and crying, all the while having this utterly confused and bewildered look in his eyes.  It was all I could do not to cry right then.  Isaiah NEVER does this at bedtime anymore.  He was breaking my heart!  I finally had to put him down and rush out of the room.  I even had to leave the house.  I felt terrible, as though I had somehow betrayed my baby.  (yes, Thomas was there to take care of things)  He's sleeping much better now.  It took about 4 days to slowly get better.  He doesn't even whimper now when I lay him down.  Praise God!

So now I think that I realize a little bit of why my mama didn't want me to be her "Big Girl".  Isaiah might be our Little Man, but he will always be my baby.

2 comments:

The Nelsons said...

What a precious little boy! I cant wait to see him in person soon :)

Robin Harris (ICE Coordinator) said...

I can still remember doing that with our oldest when he was about a year old! It was awful... we had been traveling for six months as we prepared to go to the mission field, so he got used to sleeping with us. Ack! I had to go outside; I couldn't bear the sound. But it was all over in a few days and we never looked back.