Yesterday I had what was, in retrospect, the inevitable breakdown resulting from our decision to try to move Fraser out of our bed and into his crib. For awhile now I have been coming up with plans for making this transition and abandoning said plans after trying them for only one night, if at all. The most recent plan, implemented and aborted two nights ago, involved putting a mattress on the floor in our room so that when Fraser awoke in the middle of the night I could lie on the mattress with him until he fell asleep, slip ninja-like off the mattress without awakening the sleeping mini-beast and crawl back into the big-people-bed. After pulling off the stealth withdrawal once and having Fraser sleep on his own for approximately 20 minutes I decided that he must be cold and brought him back to bed with us. No one slept particularly well in our very crowded bed that night, and by morning Andy had pretty much had it. Though the phrase "He goes or I go" was never actually uttered, the implication was there.

So I made up my mind. It had to happen eventually, so last night would be it. Fraser would sleep in the crib for the entire night instead of just his first stretch of sleep and I would just deal with a few sleepless weeks of rocking him to sleep until he got used to it. That decision was reached at approximately 8:00 a.m. By lunch I was starting to doubt the soundness of the idea that such a drastic move should be accomplished all at once, and I briefly entertained my father's idea that I should try sleeping in the crib with Fraser as a means of easing his transition. (Whether this idea was offered in jest or not made very little difference considering I have completely lost my sense of humor, and any concept of reality, where Fraser's sleep is concerned). By 4:00 p.m. I was convinced that any attempt to move Fraser out of our bed before he was ready would permanently stunt his emotional development and ultimately result in the in the word "mother" being used far too frequently in his inevitable therapy sessions.

It should therefore come as little surprise to the reader, though it sure surprised the hell out of my husband, when Andy's question at dinner "So what's the plan for the sleeping arrangement tonight?" was met with his wife bursting into tears and sputtering something along the lines of "so little.... wants to cuddle ... but for how long?.... soon he may not want to cuddle with me at all!....five months, sixth months, six years, sixteen years... so cuddly at night... not evil like the day!" I do know that my verbal machine gun fire ended with a comment about how I'm not sure we're going to have any more children and maybe this is my last chance to cuddle with a baby at night. At this point, when Andy could finally get a word in, he said "Well see, there is another good reason to have another kid."

There is a comic of a teacher sitting in a circle of small children. She is holding a book from which she has clearly been reading and she is turned to speak to one of the children who has his hand up. The caption of the cartoon reads "There is no such thing as a wrong answer, but if there was, that certainly would have been it." I stared at Andy blankly for a moment and he, taking this as resolution of our discussion, went back to his burrito.

When I went upstairs to get ready for bed, however, Andy had clearly thought over my freak out and realized I might not be fully ready to cut the apron strings. He very kindly and sincerely suggested that we should probably find a compromise. We agreed that I would try to keep Fraser in the crib until midnight. If he woke up after that I would take him and sleep in the guest room. Fraser woke up and I put him back to sleep three times until at 12:04 he woke up and I took him to the guest room. Tonight we are hoping he might make it until 12:15....