Crap Mom

So in responding to K's comment yesterday, which she began by calling herself a crap mom, something clicked in my brain. She mentioned that Dessa outgrew her Pack n Play bassinet attachment last week; that the weight limit on the thing is 15 lbs.

Click. It has been mentioned before that Dessa and Kiki have the same (or at least strikingly similar) boring brown Pack n Play.

Click. Kiki weighs 16 pounds.

So of course, I race to check the weight limit on the Pack n Play. 15 pounds. Crap. I race into the bedroom to check the weight limit on the bassinet. 15 pounds. Okay. So for the last 2 weeks AT LEAST, I have been putting my daughter's health and welfare on the line and putting her to rest in things that are not designed to hold her weight.

I? Am the crap mom.

So I had to break down last night, and put Kiki in her own room, in her safe crib, for the night. I was very iffy about it. I don't know that I would classify myself as a Family Bed type, really, but I really loved having her so close to me all night long.

So I rocked her while Kipp pulled the bumper off her crib -- no one was sleeping in the crib, and I wanted it to be pretty, so it had the bumper on it, but there was NO WAY I would leave her alone in the crib overnight with that still on it.

As he's working, he began to hum Pomp and Circumstance.

"Shut up," I told him.

"Come on, honey," he said, "this is the biggest milestone possible until she graduates from college."

"Shut up."

"I think we should have a parade. Don't we have balloons or something somewhere?"

"You're not shutting up."

"Okay, okay. We'll save the parade for when she's potty trained."

At which point it became necessary to apologize to Kiki in advance if she woke up in the morning fatherless.

Which reminds me of something funny (because I'm morbid). The other day, I dressed Kiki in a rather loose sleeper. Now, she has short arms (I've mentioned this before), so even in a long sleeve anything that fits her torso, I have to roll the sleeves up so her hands aren't covered.

So, she's napping in this loose sleeper, and her sleeves got unrolled, and somehow in her squirming, she manages to pull one arm completely out of the armhole and into her sleeper, clutched against her chest. I'm not sure exactly how this happened.

All I know is, she's sleeping peacefully one second, and the next second she is screaming bloody murder. I run over to her side, and she looks up at me, one sleeve flopping emptily at her side, and her eyes just wide as saucers, and I swear to God the expression on her face said this word for word, "My arm!!! Mom! I lost my arm!! It was right there when I went to sleep! And then I woke up AND IT WAS GONE!!"

I helped her find it once I stopped laughing my ass off. Because I am nothing if not empathetic.

Oh, I got sidetracked. Sorry. So Kiki slept by herself, in her own room, last night, the only being in the house to sleep alone, mind you, as the dogs got themselves very comfortable in our bed. Which of course made me feel guilty as hell. Here I am, downstairs in bed with my husband and our two dogs, and our itsy bitsy infant daughter is all alone all the way upstairs in an empty room without anybody around at all. Alone. Bereft. Abandoned.

At some point during the night, Kipp took the baby monitor out of my hand and put it on the nightstand. Evidently I had it cranked to the highest setting, and I was clutching it to my head as I slept.

She survived the night. In fact, she slept really well. She woke up at her regular time, and did her regular routine of kicking then vocalizing. No traumatized screams. No uncontrollable wailing and gnashing of tee- -- gums.

And so the growing up goes on. My precious girl.