Not Afraid to Squeeze

I'm not sure I've written very much about living in a one-bedroom apartment.  It was something of a dramatic change when we moved to the city - back when the Yeti and I lived in the middle of nowhere country we had more space than we even needed.  But we decided when moving here that if we were going to live in the city, we were really going to live here - forgo a car and extra space so that we could skip a long commute and the suburbs.  It's been a few years now,  and we've gone from it being just the two of us, through a pregnancy, an infant, and now a toddler.  And so far we still love it.  I won't say we'll never move to the suburbs because, well, never say never, but we don't have any immediate plans to move away.

Actually, we don't even have any immediate plans to move out of the one-bedroom, assuming everything goes as it has.  We are still intending to change our den/office into Thumper's space, and I still feel like we aren't even maximizing the space we have - I'm planning a ZipCar road trip to IKEA soon.  The one downside is that we have an open floorplan layout, so you can hear everything, but honestly, that one annoyance is outweighed by all the things we love about our location.

So let's ignore the open floorplan aspect and talk a bit about having the baby in the bedroom.  I'd seriously recommend this to anyone who's having a baby, regardless of whether you're getting a separate nursery ready - especially if you plan to breastfeed.

This is mostly out of sheer laziness on my part.  It's pretty common, nowadays, to keep the bassinet or the co-sleeper or whatever in the bedroom; we had Thumper in the newborn napper part of a Pack 'n' Play.  The thing is, even after he was in his crib, stationed at the foot of the bed, he'd still wake up in the night to eat.  He still does now (although, when he's not in teething pain, he cuts it way down to once or twice a night).

So, for me, it's much easier to stumble down to the foot of the bed, feed him, put him down, stumble off to the bathroom (more on that in a second) and then fall back asleep as soon as possible.  Less walking, less "is he actually awake or just making noise in the night?", more sleep.

The bathroom thing: maybe I'm the only one who has this issue, but night waking has been so cruel to my bladder.  See, I want to keep things as dim and sleepy for Thumper, too, so he'll fall back asleep all the faster, and it also allows the Yeti to sleep through the whole thing.  Thus, when Thumper wakes up crying, I immediately change him or go right to feeding.  There's no time for me to stumble off to the bathroom myself, which means I'm sitting there for ten minutes holding a steadily growing kid on my weakened bladder.  No chance of me accidentally dozing off because I'm sitting there counting the seconds 'til I can lay him back down and dash down the hall.  I've tried to think of a better way but it's like getting hens and foxes across a stream on a raft made for two.

Or monsters

In terms of getting actual sleep, unless Thumper is actively awake and standing up in the crib, I'm probably asleep.  I've gotten over the "what was that rustle?" phase.  The one exception is that with all the recent teething (status report: I think all four molars are in, but now he's working on the fangs) he will occasionally cry out in his sleep, but he's waking up more and we're all getting less sleep then anyway.  And again, the Yeti will sleep through anything, though occasionally I will nudge him if he starts to snore when I'm trying to get Thumper back down.

Some people have said that having the baby in their room has a negative effect on the romance aspect, but that hasn't been the case for me.  Honestly, if anything affects that, it's going to be the sleep deprivation.  If you're tired, you're going to want to sleep.  If you're not, the location of a sleeping baby isn't going to stop you.  There are other rooms, and even if there weren't, well, that didn't stop the Ma and Pa Ingalls of the world. Or cave people.  Somehow having a baby has made me think of early cave people quite a bit.  Something about staring at the baby and ruminating on the fact that it's basically been the very same for thousands of years.  Or maybe just the sleep deprivation.

As I've mentioned in the past, a big downside of a one-bedroom means that all the toys for Thumper are in the living room.  And they still are, because we still haven't cleared away the office stuff.  I am seriously looking forward to having additional space and shelving in which to stick some of this stuff, but at the same time, Thumper's still going to play in the living room, because that's where we'll be.  If we didn't have the den to expand into, I'm willing to bet we could find other places to store his toys (maybe I've been looking at that IKEA catalog for too long).

In all honesty, I don't think having a one-bedroom changes life with an infant/toddler all that much.  Maybe life is slightly more in-your-face - but at the same time, I don't think many people are sending their six-month-old off to their room to play alone for the afternoon.   People acted like we were pioneers for not planning to move to a two-bedroom immediately when I became pregnant, but in my experience, it's nothing to freak out about.

Mostly harmless

Not My Finest Moment

So the day before yesterday I lost my phone in the couch.  Not under the couch, or under a cushion - IN the couch.

It had slid between the cushion and the side of the couch, as it has many times before.  I wedged my hand in to get it, and naturally my fingers pushed it a little further down before I could get a grip - again, no big deal.  But instead of hitting bottom, I felt something give, and it slipped entirely away.

It might as well have slipped into another dimension.  I sat, stunned, before ripping the cushion off the couch and confirming that yes, the lining on our decade-old couch had completely pulled away and there was a long, narrow gap.  I wedged my hand in, but unfortunately I had a piece of wood on one side and a sheet of springs and padding on the other.  I twisted my wrist, tried with the other one, but all I got was raw hands.  (This couch has been nothing but trouble for me since day one, when it arrived two shades lighter than the one we ordered, and stupid me didn't notice under the wrapping until it was too late.  Ten years of a couch that shows everything.)

Next I tried from the bottom.  There's not much room under the couch, but I can fit my hand in.  By punching the bottom lining I was able to determine where the phone was.  The bad news?  My punching had bounced it even further away from the side.  I tried to "bounce" it back but it only made it worse.  At one point I actually got my arm and elbow stuck.  That was a scary moment, laying on my side, Thumper helpfully pulling on my hair to try to pull me up, contemplating being stuck there until the Yeti got home from work.

Of course I could have just left the phone in the couch.  In retrospect that was probably the smarter course of action.  But we don't have a landline, and somehow the thought of losing the phone filled me with panic.  What if there was an emergency?!  And worse, I wouldn't be able to text the Yeti to find out when we would meet him on his way home!  I'd have to - gasp - just gamble on timing, or not meet him at all!  It didn't even occur to me that I have, you know, a laptop with email and everything.  Not my finest moment.  No, to my mind the next logical step was to lift the couch.

I put Thumper in the pack and play, where I could see him, and went to the far end of the couch.  Surely I would just need to lift it a little to knock it back against the side, right?  Wrong.  Also, couches are heavy.  After three or four tries, lifting it several inches and probably pulling countless tiny muscles, I had made exactly zero progress.

Desperate times.  I grabbed a pair of scissors.  There wasn't enough room under the couch to actually open them and cut, but I used the pointy end to poke a hole in the hollow underside of the couch.  I scrabbled my hand in like a raccoon paw, tearing some of the fabric as I went, but somehow my lifting had actually knocked the phone more toward the rear of the couch.  Of course it had.

So behind the couch I went, attempting to lift again.  This time it was actually successful - the phone slid enough forward that I was able to reach into the hole and grab it.

Despite my obvious blind panic, I didn't completely lose my stuff in front of Thumper through this whole thing, though I got more upset than I meant to.  Sure, there was some repeated cursing, especially after I passed the couch over my big toe.  My worst moment came when I thought I was stuck under the couch - I think I just said "What?! No! No!" to my arm in a panicked yelp.  Then I got my arm free, stopped, and saw Thumper eyeing me with concern, and it brought me back down immediately.  I took a deep breath, and said to him, "Let's clap this out."  And instead of yelling and cursing and throwing a fit, which I wanted to do, I clapped and patted and deep-breathed myself into lightheadedness.

It's silly, but I'm kind of proud of that.  I don't want to be someone who flies into a rage or melts down in front of my kid.  Now I just need to work on not freaking in the first place, and letting things go.  I really could have just left it till the Yeti got home.

Unrelated pic, other than that it makes me feel zen whenever I see it

Oh, and I totally did screw up my back and neck and hips with all that lifting - two days later and I'm still paying for it.  Not the brightest crayon in the box.  Learn from my mistakes and let it go - or at least go right for the scissors.

PS I almost forgot - Top Baby Blogs reset their counters a few weeks ago.  If you'd like to click to vote for me, you can click here or on the side of the page (no need to register or anything).  I appreciate it!