There is so much going on with Jack! My baby isn’t a baby anymore. He hasn’t been for quite a while. He’s a toddler , and he’s growing up sooooo fast. I’m afraid to blink or I might miss something.

Friday marked ONE FULL WEEK of him sleeping in his own room in his OWN toddler bed! Can you believe that?!

Brian had been sleeping in Jack’s room since we started the transition, but not last night because Jack didn’t wake up.  (Yes, I’m aware that I’m overusing italics. Bite it. This is super exciting for me. Heh.) So Brian slept in bed with me. Both of us in the bedroom. By ourselves. For the first time in almost 21 months. Oh, yeah, baby…. yeah! [ Insert cheesy porn music here. ]

Numerous milestones there. *happy dance*

Of course, I barely slept a wink, because Jack was in there all by his lonesome and… well, I was wigging out a little. Okay, a lot.

I kept thinking that someone could break into our house and kidnap him and we’d never know because our room is soundproof with the door closed. So I made Brian get up and open the door so we could see (and hear) across the hallway. Then I made him get up again a few minutes later and put a baby gate up, because I didn’t want Oliver wandering around the house all night.

I tossed. And turned. At times I even whimpered like a frightened little girl. There may have been begging involved—I desperately wanted him to wake up so I could quiet my crazy ass mind, but no such luck. He was zonked. So I started imagining other reasons why he may not have woken up yet (the sane voice saying he was sleeping soundly and everything was perfectly fine didn’t win that particular argument, OBVIOUSLY). I thought the blanket might be covering his head and he had suffocated. I fretted that he tried to get out of hid bed, fell and cracked his head open on the foot board. And then I agonized that his pacifier broke apart and was lodged in his throat, and he was choking to death*.  On that last note, I actually woke Brian up at 4:00 a.m. and had him sneak into Jack’s room to check on him. THEN I think I was finally—blissfully—able to go to sleep.

There’s no way to quell this phobia of mine other than to seek professional help. I already have a monitor in there so I can hear what’s going on. And I have a video monitor I could use, but it’s so dark I don’t think I’d be able to see anything. And even if I could, it wouldn’t be close enough to make sure he was still breathing. The motion sensor that I used when he was a tiny baby that DID detect breathing will not work on a toddler bed. So I’m just going to have to get the hell over it. I’m sure I will at some point. (Not. I did that with Cheeto his entire life. And no, in case you’re wondering, I haven’t had a decent’s night sleep in years. I don’t really sleep like most people sleep. My subconscious sleeps with one eye open, periodically making the rounds and checking on everyone around me. It’s exhausting being me, it really is.)

Jack, on the other hand, is sleeping well. Much better than when he was sleeping in bed with us. He falls asleep in 20 minutes instead of 60 minutes now. He doesn’t wake up crying every hour or two. I don’t think he’s fidgeting as much. He seems a lot more refreshed when he wakes up. I told Brian when we started the conversion that if it didn’t work, I was okay with waiting until he was at least two to try again. I do not try to rush this child—he does things on his schedule and not a moment sooner. He’s definitely a stubborn Taurus.

It takes 28 days to make a habit, so we’re well on our way. And it really seems as if this one’s going to stick. (No thanks to ME. I’ve tried to sabotage this plan on no less than three occasions because I miss snuggling with him, but common sense always wins out in the end, thank goodness. At some point I really do need to SLEEP.)

Next up is getting rid of the pacifier. He doesn’t really use it at all during the day anymore… only in long car rides or in restaurants, because it keeps him mellow. Other than that, he’s down to just using it at night to go to sleep. Then it falls out of his mouth in a few minutes and is gone. Shouldn’t be too hard! No rush, but I’d really like for him to be completely done with it before his birthday in April.