The Big Boy Bed

I was once babysitting for my brother's kids and I peeked in on my nephew, who was about six at the time to ask what he was up to.

He looked up at me from where he was lying in front of a book in the middle of his bedroom floor and responded,

"Oh, you know, just kind of grumping around."

The sentiment kind of sums up what's been going on around here this week. 

We've returned from our Texas vacation and the kids are all off their schedule. They are used to being fed McDonalds daily on demand and are having much angst at being reintroduced to the concept of "vegetables BEFORE dessert". In addition, they remain in withdrawal from having a host of relatives who come running at the use of the phrase "COME WATCH ME!!!" instead of a Mom who is all, "I'm doing the laundry - get your brother to watch..."

Re-entry is always difficult.

SO IT IS THAT I'M OFFERING Y'ALL ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES THIS WEEK.

We are just about to transition our littlest to the "Big Girl Bed" so I figured this one was worth a revisit.....

FROM SEPTEMBER 2010:

Last Thursday, following Snoodie's fourth attempt to launch himself headfirst from the confines of his crib, David and I decided it was finally time for the move to the BIG BOY BED.

And thus, the horror began.

Having consulted a series of internet-based expert advisors on how to proceed with such an epic undertaking, I decided to reveal the Big Boy Bed early in the afternoon to get Snoodie used to the concept. I brought him to his room and began clapping my hands and smiling like a demented used car salesman as I showed him his new digs:

"Snoodie is such a big boy that he gets to sleep in his very own Big! Boy! Bed! It's gonna be awesome!" 

Snoodie seemed completely down with the program. He jumped onto the bed, rolled about enthusiastically, and even pulled Blue Bear close for some hard core snuggle time. I was pretty sure we were in business!

As evening fell (and again on orders from the internet-based advice givers) I ran through our bedtime ritual with military precision. After bath and books and cuddles I placed El Snoodo gently down upon the Big Boy Bed. After dimming the lights, I looked my son deep in the eyes and carefully yet lovingly explained,

"This is your first night in your Big Boy Bed! Now it is time for night-night and I want you to close your eyes and go to sleep. Mommy loves you."

Snoodie gazed back at me as if to say,

"I understand completely, mother darling. I guess this means I'll see you in the morning."

I shut the door and smiled to myself, secure in my stone-cold mothering badass-i-tude...

...at which point I was almost knocked over by Snoodie speeding past me on his way out the door, laughing hysterically. He reached the living room and in his jubilation began performing an elaborate "happy feet" dance. The gleam in his eyes told me that I had made a MAJOR miscalculation.

The Snood was drunk with freedom; the newfound ability to escape the confines of his bed appeared to be coursing through his veins like a drug.

And Snoodie wanted more.

Summoning my inner Supernanny, I blank-faced my son's increasingly complex footwork and hauled him back to bed without comment. I looked him in the eyes, delivered a firm "Night-Night!" and turned to leave.

Snoodie bested his time to the living room on his second escape and was spinning in manic circles by the time I scooped him up to put him back in bed again.

And again.

And again.

CUT TO: 2 and 1/2 hours later.

Snood and I are still at it. His exuberant escapes have become decidedly less exuberant over the course of the night, but still he is managing to go through the motions.

Like any good addict, the Snood seems determined to recapture the magic high of that first escape. He staggers out of bed again and again towards the living room, the ritual becoming increasingly desperate with each repetition.

But still it goes on.

Towards the end of the evening, Snoodie was limping forth from his room, too tired to even walk a straight line. As I watched this sorry display I turned to David and said,

"You realize that in the movie version of this we are the bad guys, right? The kid who just won't go down and keeps on staggering to his feet no matter what the big guys throw at him - HE'S THE HERO!"

David took this in with a concerned look on his face before my sister (who had observed our war of the wills from start to finish) chimed in,

"Not if the movie is Fatal Attraction. Then it's like when you keep thinking Glenn Close is dead, but instead she keeps on rearing back up and trying to kill Michael Douglas and his wife. In that case, you two AREN'T the villains, you're just the terrified victims of a sociopath's unrelenting rampage."

That made us feel better.

By 10pm Snoodie had given up and fallen asleep in bed, clutching Blue Bear lovingly and even snoring quietly. Since then, David and I have attempted to up our game each night in hopes of making the whole undertaking less fraught, but the Snood has matched us at every turn with his seemingly unlimited tactical skill.

When we added a doorknob cover so that he could no longer open the door, the Snood began crashing objects in his room with extreme prejudice until we got worried and opened the door to check on him. When we switched over to a baby gate at the doorway he started pitching his beloved Blue Bear into the hallway and then pathetically begging for his return.

I gotta hand it to the kid - he's good.

Still, we've managed to stay the course. Two days into the Big Boy Bed transition I was literally begging David to let me move Snoodie back to the crib, but my husband held firm:

"There's too much blood on the sand at this point," he explained. "We've got no choice but to hold the beach."

And (husband's favorite phrase alert!) he was right. The nights since have gotten easier. We're getting our time from bedtime to sleep down by about an hour each night. And today for the first time I am proud to announce that Snoodie NAPPED IN THE BIG BOY BED!!!

Ah, Sweet Victory!

Sure, it took two-and-a-half hours, but who's counting?

Destination Unknown

My husband and I are trying to figure out where to live.

We do, in fact, live somewhere now. A very nice little house in Los Angeles, as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, it is a 900 square foot, 2 bedroom house in which we are currently living with 4 other humans. So at some point in the not too distant future -- something is going to have to give.

I have a history as a bit of a nomad.

After I graduated from college I wanted to be a writer, and I thought the key to this would be moving to a location where I could work without a single distraction. So I did what at 21 seemed an entirely reasonable thing and put the names of half a dozen small towns in a hat, picked one, and promptly relocated to Santee, South Carolina, where I proceeded to live for several months in a cabin in the woods. 

From small town South Carolina I headed next to New Orleans; then to Portland, OR; Chicago, IL; Las Vegas, NV; San Francisco, CA; and Brooklyn, NY. I lived for varying stretches of time in each place, writing shows, doing odd jobs, and exploring what each town had to offer.

In 2001, I got my first TV writing job and headed west for Los Angeles. I figured I would spend a few years here, try my hand at a comedy writing career, and then move on again when something more interesting came up.

But as the years passed by in L.A. and I headed deep into my thirties, the urge to roam started to wane. I barely even noticed its absence, nor the fact that after I got married and had children out here, my wanderlust was quickly being replaced by a whole new desire to make a giant comfy nest for myself and my family.

The result of all of this was that several months ago I sat up in bed in a cold sweat, rocked by the realization that

I LIVE HERE. IN LOS ANGELES. THIS IS WHERE I'M FROM.

And listen, I freely acknowledge that living in Los Angeles is not exactly a terrible fate. I mean, it's sunny here 340 days out of the year. We live in a wonderful neighborhood and have easy access to amazing museums, beautiful scenery, and super-fun, child-friendly activities. 

Plus sometimes I see Punky Brewster at the supermarket. WHICH IS AWESOME.

But for a whole host of reasons it is simply true that I don't actually want to be from Los Angeles. Because, among other things...

• We have family in Texas, New York, and Chicago, and we want our kids to be closer to them.

• I miss being a car ride away from the places we used to visit as kid, and I long for the warm, salty feel of the Atlantic coast.

• Although I can say with absolute certainty that I do not miss the grey freezingness of February in New York, I do miss the seasons and feel an undeniable calling to have my children know from snow days, cocoa, and sledding hills. 

• I hate not getting to see my team play live two Sundays every Fall.

• I despair at what it is going to cost us in airfare to keep buying 5 airline tickets half a dozen times a year in order to keep up our current family-visiting schedule.

Are these good enough reasons to uproot our children, sell our home, and move thousands of miles away from our wonderful California-based life? 

Probably not.

But I'm pretty sure we're going to do it anyway.

How we are going to manage to sell a home, all of its contents, and get all five of us from one coast to another?

Well, that remains to be seen. Until then I'll simply update our current family status to

Destination: Unknown.

Texas Livin'

I'm in Texas visiting my husband's family.

Having grown up in the New York City area as part of a large Irish Catholic family, my immersion into Texas living has not been entirely smooth. I invite you now to picture any number of romantic comedies in which a big-city girl marries a small-town Southern boy and has to find her way using nothing more than grit and gumption!

Are you picturing the scene where Sandra Bullock is trying to fix the water pump and it keeps spilling everywhere while Matthew McConaughey shakes his head with a knowing smile from the porch? 

Good. We're on the same page.

I've been visiting Texas for several years now and I've come to really love it here.  I still wilt in the 100-plus temperatures and tend to overuse the phrase, "CAN I GET THAT WITH NO PEPPERS?" during food runs. As an urban Northeasterner I prefer my wilderness to be limited strictly to zoo outings, and so when I find myself sitting in the Guadalupe River with small fish nibbling on my toes my instinct is to shriek loudly to my husband, "HONEY! The nature is touching me!!!!"

You can only imagine my joy when, during an outing earlier in the week, my niece presented me with the following find:

Are you understanding that this beast was roughly the size of a small dog? IT WAS!!

No matter how much time I spend here I'll always remain something of a stranger in a strange land in Texas. But that doesn't diminish the real love I've come to feel for the place.

One of the best parts of being married has been the key my husband handed me to this whole new place where I am automatically welcomed into the relationships and traditions that he has been working to establish over his whole lifetime...

...and it is nothing I could have ever conceived of for myself. In Kerrville, his hometown, I have a seat in the skybox where his Dad calls the high school football games. There is a special spot by the river that his sister found who knows how many years ago. There's a great place his Mom knows for peanut butter shakes right outside of Waco. And then there are the dozens and dozens of people who greet him with happy smiles all over town before turning to me to announce with obvious sincerity, "Well, I'm sure happy to know you."

It is great for me, and I LOVE it for my kids.

I love for them to be learning this world as total insiders. I love to watch them explore the terrain their aunts and uncles roamed as kids, to see them touring the sheet metal shop their Great-Grandfather opened in 1954 and still runs to this day, to visit with them the Sunday School class full of folks who have been praying for them since before they were born, and to send them out to learn to navigate the terrain from their brave Texas-born cousins.

Tonight we'll watch the 4th-of-July fireworks down by the river, family and childhood friends in every form all around. As we drink our Shiner Bocks and eat something fried-on-a-stick I'll be glad that life led me here...

...deep in the heart of Texas.