Cribtastic

I have a few friends with babies that are the same age as Marina.  With situations like this, it is inevitable that comparisons get made.  How is your child sleeping?  How many teeth does she have?  Etc, etc.  It turns out that my kid usually pales in comparison.  How is she sleeping?  Well, she occasionally will sleep entirely through the night, but the majority of the time, she wakes up at 2 am or 4 am and screams until I lose my mind.  Since she still wakes all the time, we can't put her in the room with Eli yet, so we have a little fussy roommate occupying our space.  Up until this week, I have had her crib mostly covered with a king-size blanket that created a dark, cave-like environment for her to peacefully nap and sleep (occasionally sleep, I should say).  But now that she is scooting, partially crawling, and pulling herself up, she has found a way to pull her crib-cover down on her and attempt to suffocate herself.  This has resulted in a swift removal of the crib-cave.  Now, she is out in the open air where she has just to peer out of her crib to locate her parents before she launches her all-out protests.  I have tried numerous tactics to find that secret ingredient that will result in a perfect child and long, restful hours of sleep.  I have covered all the windows with black cloth to shut out the light.  I have a fan running and a noise machine.  And last night, in an effort to keep her from standing and flipping out of the crib on her head, I found it necessary to lower the mattress.

I put Marina in her Bumbo seat to watch me struggle with the screws and nonsense of the crib.  At this point, she really is too active to want to just sit and observe.  Instead, she tries to launch herself out of the seat, but I have outsmarted her by putting the tray on, so she is locked in.   Needless to say, it was really pleasant for the two of us - Marina barred in her plastic chair and me crawling around under the crib and mishandling the allen wrench.  

Here was the highlight of the evening:  while I was sweating and struggling to fit the world's tightest crib sheet on, I pulled just a little too hard and lost my grip.  My hand flew off of the elastic like a shot through the air and knocked me in the chin.  It was like the hand belonged to someone else who really wanted to beat my buttocks.  I punched myself in the chin and the blow was so intense, it made me see stars for just a minute.  It very much reminded me of my first day at my job where I pulled a water container off of the cooler to replace it and it came straight up to just about knock me out.  I nearly passed out and had a bruise to tell the tale later.  If you said I am a bit accident prone, you would to be totally accurate.

So now, in my darkened room with a newly lowered crib mattress, if Marina is napping and I need something like clothes, I have to army crawl on the floor in hopes that she will not wake up and look over her bumper and bust me.  While I was doing this last night, I stopped and observed myself and laughed at what kind of life I am currently leading - bad hair, bad clothes, saggy butt, a little bit crazy but a lot happy even in a tiny house where I have to crawl on the floor just to have something to wear after I get out of the shower (if I ever get a shower).  I love my husband, I love my kids and I even [mostly] love my butthead cats.  I must be a masochist.