Bedtime Revisited

I just put Elaina to bed, and once again was caught without my video camera when I most needed it. I keep putting off writing about this, because I want a picture or video to accompany it. In case that never happens, though, I'm going to go ahead and write before I forget. Lest any of you be mislead into believing that after Elaina turned one year old all bedtime issues stopped, I'll set the record straight.


Mostly—mostly—bedtime is pretty easy these days. But the heady (and a little sad) days of putting her in bed and walking out of the room were short-lived. It's not so much that she's upset to go to bed, though sometimes she does fight it if she's overtired. It's more that she has a certain process that she likes to work through. It can't be rushed, and it requires me to be in the room. Mostly, trying to leave before she's asleep meets with Elaina's disapproval.

That's okay. I get that she has reason to be sensitive to being left alone, and it really doesn't hurt me to have a little quiet time. There are times when I'm wishing for her to fall asleep quickly. The other night, I found myself thinking, "She really just wants to be able to see me here. If I could leave a double in my place, I could go downstairs and work." But then I realized I'd miss an awful lot. Nothing earth shattering, nothing she's going to remember, but hopefully some things I'll remember. Things like:

• She sings or jabbers to herself for several minutes before falling asleep.
  
  
• Sometimes there's a 30-second burst of crying just before she falls asleep, as if she realizes that she's going to actually fall asleep.
  
  
• She absolutely will not tolerate your using your iPod to surf the web or read email while she's trying to go to sleep. Don't try it. Or if you must, hold the iPod underneath her crib, lie on your side, and read with the upward-facing eye shut. Or, you know, just enjoy a few minutes of time away from the rest of the world.
  
  
• She often puts her little feet up on the slats of the crib, and between the slats of the crib, and kicks and kicks and kicks—not in frustration—in fact, it often accompanies the singing. This is actually a good thing, because if she's got her feet up, her head is down, and the battle's half won. I'm sometimes struck by the almost irresistible urge to play with the little feet sticking out through the side of the crib, but that would undo the headway made to that point and start the bedtime routine all over. (This is the picture/video I hope to be able to show you, by the way.)
  
  
• I used to always keep a hand on the crib, between the slats, so she'd know I was there. She doesn't really need that anymore but....
  
  
• The other night, she was sad and fighting sleep, and I reached between the crib slats and stroked her hair. The next night, she was fighting sleep again and she pushed her head into my hand to get me to do it again.
  
  
• Tonight my hand was between the crib slats like usual, only she was in a really happy mood. She started pushing Mmm-Duck into my hand, pushing her blanket into my hand, basically sharing her favorite bedtime companions as if I needed help falling asleep.