Strange Bedfellows

When the crunchers were born they were small. No, really, they were tiny. They could probably have slept in a shoebox. Okay, maybe not one of Ma's shoeboxes (size 7) but probably one of mine (size 12). In any case, they didn't sleep in a shoebox at all, they slept in a crib, crossways, side by side. That worked for a couple of months until they began to get too tall to fit crossways in the crib and we started slanting them little by little. It quickly became apparent that we couldn't keep that up much longer, and besides, they were starting to roll around and wake each other up. Cole, for some reason, drew the short straw and was displaced into the port-a-crib. In order to keep the boys from waking each other up with their middle of the night cries we moved Cole into the room next door. Eventually even that was too close and Cole was moved again to the spare room downstairs. Finally, everyone was happy. But the boys had continued to grow and Cole soon grew a little too tall to be comfortable in the port-a-crib. So we put him on a full size mattress on the floor. This worked but he started having trouble going to sleep. He has never been very good at going to sleep. Ma used to nurse him to sleep but as he nursed less and less it became harder to get him to quiet down and fall asleep. It got worse. Finally, he was taking up to and over an hour to get to sleep, which he would only do if Ma or I were in the completely dark room with him keeping him on the mattress. If we didn't he would cry until he was too tired to stay up any longer and even then he would only fall asleep if we were in the room. Maybe, we thought, he just needs the reassurance of another human being in there with him. Perhaps it's time to share a room with Grant again. Last week we started putting Cole in their old crib, which is in the same room as the fire engine bed where Grant sleeps. The first couple of nights Cole cried some but when he realized that Grant was there he stopped and went to sleep. The crying kept Grant awake and he would get out of his bed and walk over to the crib to comfort/entertain/tease Cole. Now, Cole rarely cries and, while it sometimes takes a little longer, they entertain each other while on the way to sleep. And they usually wake up giggling.

Nighty night!