Musical Beds

We had a sleepover with Zamir last night. Aiesha was still laboring as of 7pm, so we put Zamir to bed.

Plan A was that Zamir and Megan would sleep in Megan's room. Megan in her bed, Zamir on his inflatable Buzz Lightyear bed. That didn't go very well. In fact it started to fall apart before we even started, since Megan wouldn't sleep in bed - she wanted to be on the floor with Zamir.

But aside from that, Megan and Zamir have incompatible falling asleep styles. With Megan, we turn the fan AND a cd on, turn out the lights and shut the door. Zamir, on the other hand needs silence, a light and a grown up sitting within his line of sight. Poor Zamir was exhausted, and Megan was so excited at company in her room she couldn't stop moving, giggling, and talking

So we went to plan B. I moved Megan out of the room and told her to fall asleep in my bed. But that didn't work either. Megan started crying, because she wanted to sleep with Zamir. After the tears subsided, we agreed to try again. But in when she returned to her room, she wanted the fan back on, Zamir thought it was too loud.

So we went to plan C, which frankly is where we should have started. I put Zamir in my bed and Megan in her room with the promise to reunite them when they both fell asleep. Zamir, was a champ through the whole experience. In the daytime he is a fierce child, but on this night, he was so polite and exact in his requirements. He needed a light, a cup of water,an apple (which sadly we did not have, we had to sub in a mini-pear), and someone to sit with him. We rarely see Megan fall asleep, it was interesting to watch him.

But meanwhile, in the other room, Megan was falling apart. I felt so bad. The sleepover was not going the way she thought it would. And I think that an entire day of sharing her family had worn on her. Bryan sat with her a while and after Zamir fell asleep, I went in and we did her bedtime routine over again. And at last everyone was asleep.

For a little while. At 11, I had to take Zamir to pee and move him out of our bed. We have tried the sleep peeing with Megan a few times, and it has generally worked. But I couldn't quite figure out how it would work with a boy. It didn't seem possible that a person could stand up and pee and not wake up. But it totally worked.

On the way back upstairs, we dropped the sleeping Zamir in Megan's bed and went to my child-free room feeling rather smug. That lasted until around 2am. That is when I awoke to Megan standing at my bedside. Because she woke up and noticed that Zamir was in her bed, and came in to get the scoop. And of course, she woke up Zamir, and Riley in the process.

I ended up putting Megan back to bed, nursing Riley back to sleep and taking Zamir downstairs for a middle-of-the-night showing of Finding Nemo. And amazingly, after 100 minutes of fish fun, he was willing to go back to bed. And then he slept and slept and slept.

It was a rough night in some regards, but actually much easier than I expected. We we a little sad to see he go.