Sunday, April 05, 2009

hindsight .. so perfect

Looking back, I would have made different decisions. I guess we could all say that.

Our Sunday morning rush .. er .. routine is that we leave home to go to church and pick Cloe up on the way. Non-regular readers, Cloe is our 21 month old granddaughter. She is one of six grandkids. She lives closest to us. She is Sierra's daughter. Again, regular readers will know that Sierra and Cloe lived with us for about 8 months until recently. (TJ says, as she passed by reading over my shoulder .. "None of our readers are regular. Just reading us makes them irregular.) Cloe always goes to church with us on Sunday. It is a good routine for a child to learn. We generally call Sierra when we get up and tell her to have Cloe ready. This rarely happens. Picking her up puts us behind schedule. We mostly make it to church on time, but without pre-service fellowship time.

We had this great idea. Here is where the hindsight comes in. We would keep Cloe on Saturday night. That way she would be up with us already, and we could get her dressed and out the door on time. Great plan or so we thought. We now know that neither of us are ready to slip back into parenting on any kind of full time basis, especially for a bright toddler like Cloe. She had us up until late, playing in our bed. Then, when She was settled and sleeping, I was going to get up and go to the restroom. We have a king size waterbed. So, I, in an effort to reduce any movement, used the sideboard to get up, rather than push on the mattress as I usually do. The sideboard broke loose from the foot and head boards. The mattress survived.

Now, it is after midnight, Cloe is awake again, and I am trying to screw the bed back together. It was useless at that point. There was much more work involved in fixing the bed than just a few screws and good night. TJ and Cloe stayed in the bed. I went to daughters room (she was spending night with a friend) and slept in her bed. I didn't sleep well. TJ didn't sleep well. She froze all night because I wasn't there to keep her warm. Cloe kicked her all night.

Hindsight says:

Do not offer to watch toddler granddaughter overnight until she is around 12 years old.

I know the bed incident wasnt Cloe's fault. It was just a crowning moment to an already otherwise busy night.

Today, after church, we broke down the bed, removed the water, and decided how we needed to proceed. It involves replacing some wood on the foundation and sturdying up some places. Perhaps it will involve scrapping a waterbed and buying a conventional bed. The Doctor already told TJ we need a FIRM bed for her back. He said a waveless mattress was fine if we wanted to keep the waterbed. We are exploring both options.

Daughter is spending night with a friend again, so her bed is available for us tonight. She told us we were not allowed to do the sex thing in her bed. If she isn't allowed, we aren't allowed. I don't know about all that, now.

3 comments:

Marian Dean said...

....and I suppose you were still late for church anyway, after such a night? Hindsight or no, in theory it was a good idea... just not yet. If you remember there comes a time when you can't get them out of bed in the mornings anyway.
I had a lovely imagining of you trying to get out of bed quietly.
A water bed no less!!! Sounds very romantic.
Love Granny

miruspeg said...

A night to be remembered and reminised about over the years.
The best laid plans eh.
Cheers
Peggy

PS I finally purchased your "he Gave Me Words" book today and should receive it in about a week. Can't wait to read all those beautiful poem.

Boy Mom said...

"No good deed goes unpunished" comes to mind. Love that you take her to church with you.