Secret Agent Josephine

Yes, we still have it. Here’s the dealio on the 70’s crib: We have it but we don’t use it. I took the giant suffocating bumper pad out and stuffed it into a box that is now in storage (aka Mom’s garage). The crib is still in our room because from time to time I use it to corral Baby Bug while I put away clean clothes or change the sheets or something. Since she’s hardly ever in it, she thinks it’s fun. Yippee a cage with bars to rattle and little dealybob beads to yank and try to screw off. Don’t worry, she’s not going to swallow them. They are attached very well and I never leave her in there with out watching her closely.

This is another touchy subject. I don’t know if I should officially say I co-sleep with Baby Bug. She goes to bed in her crib at night by herself. But sometimes she wakes up and I get tired of patting her back and trying to get her to go back to sleep by herself so I tuck her into the crook of my arm and cuddle with her on the futon on the floor. It’s great. There is nothing more wonderful than cuddling with your baby and falling asleep with your nose sniffing her freshly washed soft baby head.

The only problem is she likes it too. She likes it better than sleeping in her crib and this sometimes makes it hard for me to put her down at night. If she’s not dead tired, she’ll wake up and cry the minute I put her in her crib. So it’s back to the rocking chair for another twenty minutes of rocking and singing and it gets old after a while. Especially when I want to stay up late and blog or work on a fun project on my laptop. And this brings me to my next bullet point…

I’m a rocking mom. I like rocking my baby to sleep. A lot of people don’t do this and I completely understand why. Because once you do it, you always have to do it. Sometimes I am very jealous of you moms who can just plop your kid in their crib, close the door and get on with your business. Yes, I know they get over the crying very quickly and become happy little nappers BUT I can not do this. I’ve tried. It’s just terrible! The crying! My heart! I have to rock. Rock and sing, rock and sing. That’s what we do.

Every time I start to doubt my choice (because I’m so fed up with the rocking process that can take upwards of a half an hour on bad days) I call up my Aunt who rocked all four of her babies. She is wise and fortifies me. She tells me that it is okay that I want to rock my baby. She tells me that, indeed, they do grow up and grow out of it and someday you miss rocking them. Appreciate the rocking while you have it, she says. So that’s what I’m doing. I doubt myself a lot though. I worry that I’m creating a monster who will never learn to fall asleep by herself. But then again, I worry about everything.

I spoil Baby Bug rotten. I don’t let her eat cookies every day… just maybe every other. I asked Baby Bug’s doctor about letting Baby Bug have a cookie or a muffin now and then and she said a little sugar twice a week is not that big of a deal. So hopefully I’m not raising a raging sugar fiend. I probably am.

I also spoil her in other ways. I give her a lot of attention. My Dad worries about it and tells me I need to watch out for this. But I think you can’t really help it with your first kid. What am I going to do? Put her in a corner with her toys and walk into the other room? I think she’ll learn the hard way just like I did that you can’t always be the center of attention. I learned it when I was 23. And I’m still okay.