Damon is two and a half, and he sleeps in Mommy's bed (funny how three of us sleep there, and yet it is my bed).
Damon has his own bed; he's had it for a while. First it was a crib, in the corner of our bedroom, by the window. The cheerful, yellow sheet on the mattress would get dusty, and I would throw it in the wash. The oh-so-soft, baby-blue Gund teddy bear hanging from its tie on the rail looked forlorn and abandoned.
Sometimes we used it as a big bin for clean, as-of-yet unfolded laundry. A standard-sized crib can hold A LOT of laundry, burying his special bear pillow.
Dad's acoustic, electric and bass guitars all took their turns being propped in the corner of Damon's unused bed- a convenient and protected place to stash them, when a practice session is hurriedly cut off by the call of parenting, house, or work duties.
Damon got older, and he outgrew his unused crib.
Optimistically, Dad took the side off and, voila, it's a toddler bed!
There is something about that plain, yellow little bed that just attracts clutter: the shirt you take off but isn't really dirty, the pants you wore only for church that don't quite make it back to the closet... I toss layers of clean shirts, dresses, and pants and little button-up shirts over the foot of the bed that need to be hung up instead of folded. There they sit, abandoned, for days or a week while my two small boys energetically throw themselves around in the living room, thumping up and down the wooden stairs, or their father or I labor in the kitchen, preparing meal after meal.
One night I was gung-ho: All milk-sleepy, I put him in that little bed in the corner, and in the middle of the night he woke up ready to crawl back into our bed, half-conscious and wheezing with asthma. Superstitiously, I feel like my sensitive, sensitive, allergic child slips under some protective umbrella when he sleeps close to me, stays close to me.
It's as if we two have our own ecology, and if he stay in close enough proximity, my pheromones or some other nonsense will be a buffer from the countless things he is allergic to. I am just open enough, or far enough out there, and close enough to him that I do not think this idea is so crazy. It does seem to work.
When the intensity of our fall schedule hit, there came a week where I hit a breaking point: so much waking and disturbed sleep, tugging and kicking of blankets, compromised positions, earlier mornings, new, vulnerable situations when it came to food allergies for Damon, and the never ending, from-scratch, allergenic, limited meal prep. I forced myself to meet my obligations that weekend, but I seriously considered saying, enough. I can't do all of this, under these conditions and stresses. I am too worried, too sad, and too tired.
Of course there are the exhilarating, positive moments, and they are so amazing in the way they are for every parents and humans everywhere: the little victories, the moments of growth for all of us. But I have to say this: my small two-year-old has been to a month of Saturday preschool classes this fall, and every single Saturday after I leave him there, the teacher and volunteers fully educated on his special needs for protection and observation (DON'T let him put his fingers in his mouth, for the love of GOD), I get into the car and at some point, I cry from the stress, the sadness, or the relief. Maybe this is somehow common, I don't know.
This is the child who had one bite of fresh pineapple last weekend. One bite of something we were fairly certain was probably not a good food for him, but we just couldn't leave well enough alone (no allergist test results told us otherwise). After about a minute and a half, he started to cry, saying his mouth itched. He had a few hives on his forehead, delicately swollen, and he started to sweat and flush. The wheezing and shortness of breath is the scary part, the kicker. He needed about one and a half doses from the nebulizer to calm him and his symptoms. HE, the two-year-old, was unwilling to pause and take off the breathing mask to take the Benadryl he needed.
The reaction was probably due to OAS, or Oral Allergy Syndrome. If you are allergic to pollens, some fresh fruit can cause a reaction. How severe it could get, I don't want to test. I don't mess with asthma. Add pineapple to the list of taboo (for now?) fruits for him.
From my standpoint, it took me multiple days to come back from that combination- overloaded mom and my child's allergic reaction. Just to be clear, allergic food reactions are dangerous to his life and health. Epipens are NOT completely protective in case of anaphylaxis due to exposure, and the stakes are as high as can be. Every food reaction is terrifying, and you have to be extremely judicious, quickly, about what to do. Also, epipen (or, anaphylaxis) = ER. That is how that works- if it calls for one, you have to do the other.
But, back to the bed. I disappeared alone to run errands last weekend. I came back, and Damon's bed had migrated up to his big brother's bedroom! Of course!!! Dad had decided: enough was enough. This woman is crazy from sleep deprivation, personal space deprivation. She doesn't even make sense, anymore. (I wouldn't go that far...) but the point was this: give him every opportunity to grow. Give him his own new, exciting space!
Big brother (all four years of him) is ecstatic about sharing his room at night. So far, Damon sometimes lies in it during the day, for about thirty seconds. We had a few failed nap attempts. We took down a set of zoo-shaped hooks and found the ideal arrangement for two mismatched toddler beds in that blue-painted boys' room. (Bunk beds have been mentioned.)
Damon slept in his bed last night for two hours, then Dad brought him back down to our bed; no need to push it all at once. But, there is nothing like a sleeping child.
