Our last night of freedom

As I've previously mentioned, my parents live in China. My Dad is currently under contract with a french hotel chain and is managing a resort. It all sounds very glamorous and exciting, and I can't believe I haven't been able to visit since a beach is involved, but round trip tickets for our little family aren't in the cards.

Instead, my Mom visits for ... lengthy ... periods of time.

She flies in tonight, and is sticking around for about a month with a visit to my brother in Chicago somewhere in the middle. Of course, I'm thrilled to see her. I have a great relationship with both my parents, and my Mom and I get along great. It'll be great to have someone around who, unlike B, isn't a homebody. I've got a few activities lined up that I've been saving for my Mom's arrival.

As much as I love having my Mom around, what I do not love, is having her around in our 2 bedroom apartment. Especially now that Mia is very much out of the infant stage, and actually uses her entire nursery, rather than just the small area that was her crib and changing table. She likes to take books off her bookshelf, takes shoes out of her closet, looks at the picture frames on her nightstand.

We haven't entirely figured out what Mia's sleeping arrangements will be during my Mom's stay. She has repeatedly said that she has no problem sharing Mia's room. While I don't doubt her sincerity, I don't know how Mia's going to react to having someone in her own room. She's generally sensitive to nighttime noises, and often wakes up if I sneak in there around 10 or 11 to cover her back in her blanket. Lately, if Mia wakes up in the middle of the night, it's been impossible to put her back in her crib without her screaming bloody murder. Both because we are lazy and because we have new neighbors, we just plop her in the middle of our bed and spend the rest of the night getting kicked in the back or smacked in the face.

But last night, as I put Mia in her bed, I told her this was her last night of sleeping by herself for a while, so make it count! Of course, she woke up at 10:30, right as we were settling in. I took her out, fed her the rest of her bottle, and put her back in her crib, without protest. Then, just as we had drifted to sleep, she woke up again around midnight, and pulled her classic "my crib mattress is full of thorns" routine, being perfectly sleepy in B's arms, but writhing and screaming in pain as soon as she was set down on her awful, terrible, "we should spent $50 more and get this nicer one" crib mattress. So, our last night of freedom (meaning, doing anything that makes any kind of sound whatsoever, I'm talking about watching a little Jon Stewart or Tosh.0, get your mind out of the gutter) was actually spent dodging Mia's violent sleep re-positioning. (She actually laid her head on my throat for about 10 minutes, before choosing instead to sleep at the foot of the bed -- yes, like a dog would).

I'm mostly excited. But also, I'm pretty sure that for the next 30 days, my child will refuse her pack and play. I suggested we pack our walk in closet up a bit early, and set the crib up in there, but B wasn't having it.