James and I have always been a pretty good team. Before we started dating, we were friends and we played co-ed volleyball together. We had fun, and worked pretty well together. Once we started dating, our favorite thing to do was to go paddling together and later, got into white-water paddling. We communicated well and therefore things went pretty smoothly.
Once we got engaged, and I pictured our future together, I imagined that the fact that we worked well together would spill over into all facets of our life, including raising our children.
Fast forward to last night.
Actually, before I tell you about last night, I should give you a bit of an update on Hunter's sleeping. I've been putting him down awake for the past couple of weeks and he's been sleeping through the night. He's getting up early, but sleeping through the night for the most part. Before he sleeps through the night though, he cries for anywhere between 5-15 minutes. This crying has been accompanied by (occasionally) barfing. My sleep "book" has instructed us to clean him up afterwards, but to not make a big deal about it, or allow him to get out of bed after he's cleaned up, causing him to associate barfing with being able to get out of bed.
Last night, he cried for 10 minutes (I did my 5 minute check-ins) and when I checked on him the 2nd time, he was asleep. Great, I thought. I slapped myself on the back, took Drew up to bed and then poured myself a glass of wine and settled in to Thursday night tv.
Around 11, I decided I couldn't wait up for James anymore and went to check in on Drew and Hunter before I retired for the night. Drew was fine. When I went into H's room, the strong aroma of barf hit my nose. Upon closer inspection I discovered a pile of puke in the corner of his bed, and Hunter soundly asleep at the other end of the bed.
Crap. I am the worst mother in the world. What the hell do I do now? The sleep book has no instructions for what to do if the baby is sleeping and there is barf!!!
I quickly grabbed some wipes and cleaned up most of the chunks and then found a blanket to cover the wet/smelly spot so that if he rolled over there, he wouldn't land in it.
I then messaged James with a desperate call for help/advice.
My vote was to just leave him, let him sleep. I was certain that if we were to lift him out of bed it would cause all hell to break loose and we wouldn't get him back to sleep without another screaming/barfing episode.
James walked through the door a few minutes later and decided it was time for him to take a closer look.
He put on his headlamp (yes, we have headlamps.....they are extremely handy!) and went in. We (OK, He) decided on a plan of action. I pulled the sheets off half of the crib, then put on the clean one. James lifted Hunter, without changing his sleeping position and I took the other half of sheet off, then slid the clean sheet underneath him.
We successfully changed the sheets without waking him, and luckily enough for us, he didn't get any barf on him!
High fives for us.
I'm not sure I could have ever imagined us working together in such "stressful" circumstances. I don't think I could have ever imagined that this situation is what I would perceive as stressful. You would have thought we were preforming major surgery the way we were acting.
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