Adios, Blue.

About a month ago, Henry’s pacifier bit the dust. Or, I guess more accurately, he bit it. We’d been telling him since we got this one that it was his last one and when it broke, no more pacifiers. Wouldn’t you know that this one lasted through a cross-country move AND most of a school year after that! Alas, “Blue” as Henry called it, is no more. And any sort of sleep schedule/routine we had going, is also no more. Henry has decided to not go gentle into that good night. He’s even created a new cry for the occasion. It involves his whole body and the only good thing about it is it does seem to tire him out. He rejects any part of the bedtime routine that once seemed to work well. Bath. Blue. Books. Bed. With one gone, the rest of these now warrant the cry.

 “Did we take it away too soon? Too suddenly?” Jared asked me after experiencing an especially excruciating evening. The doctor and dentist have been telling us to take it away since he was six months old. Clearly, we had an attachment to the magic Blue as well.

“Whether we did or not, we can’t go back now,” I said, “or I can just picture Henry’s high school graduation photos with buck teeth and Blue.”

One of the byproducts of Blue’s departure is Henry decided without Blue there is no need to stay in his crib. So he climbed out. Several times. Back in September, after an especially scary nightmare involving an orange T-Rex, Henry jumped shipped. We worried, back then, our crib days were over. But, he made no more escape attempts. Until now. Less than a week after Blue’s demise, Jared put Henry in his crib after reading to him and came out to the living room. It had already been a long day. I think I was on duty. We sat there trying not to fall asleep and we heard Henry’s door knob squeal. My first thought was How did someone get into Henry’s room??? Then he emerged saying, “I wake up.” After two more exoduses and a requested demonstration (quite talented gymnastically actually, including the arms up finale pose) of how he did it, we converted his bed to the toddler phase. While safety has been restored, removing a wall does not help in keeping the anti-sleep kid in his bed.

 

 

Luckily (and unluckily, depending), he saves the crazy for us. The first day my mom (Nona, to Henry) was here for naptime, she read him two books in the guest bed and told him, “Show me how you get in your big boy bed.” Henry comes running through the living room, makes the tight corner to his room and hops in his bed. “Goodnight,” I hear her say. “Goodnight, Nona,” came his tiny voice. The door was closed and not a peep. Relief, but also are you kidding me?!?! came from inside me. The same for Grammie (Jared’s mom). Whereas I will spend thirty minutes rocking him while he hiccups after twenty minutes of the cry and it’s like those Neverending Story statues as I put him in his bed. Will the eyes open and zap me or not? Deep breaths. Good thing for grandmas.