Organization is Key

People that know me know that I am a planner. I like to have all my ducks in a row. And I plan for every contingency so that I am always early, never late. It's trickier with two children, but it's not impossible. So, it shouldn't have been a surprise that I prepared a two sided, typed and laminated set of guidelines for Chandler and Tyler's first overnight stay away from me. Never mind that they were going to stay with their Nana and Poppo. And never mind that Nana is a nurse that at one time worked in the NICU. I needed them to know how we did it at home so that hopefully things would be easier on everyone during their visit. And it was laminated out of practicality. Caring for two babies requires more than a little bit of water. If it got wet, they wouldn't be up a creek without a paddle. Yes, they laughed at me. And they told my brother, who called and laughed at me. But it made me feel better about "abandoning" my children for a whole night. And when we picked the boys up, they even admitted that it was helpful. I updated the guidelines every time they went for an overnight, and kept them handy in the kitchen for reference when we had the occasional babysitter. Which wasn't very often. It didn't occur to us to go out without the kids very often. Not because we didn't want to, but because we were too tired to put any effort into anything but surviving. And staying up late for a real date night was unthinkable. I remember one night we did ask a friend to babysit so we could go to Chicago for sushi. I sent her a text when we were on our way home and she responded that we weren't allowed to come home yet. We were instructed to go have a drink or something. We were at a total loss for what to do with ourselves. It had been way too long since we had free time like that.

Eventually, the boys started sleeping through the night consistently. They were learning how to self sooth. And it was a beautiful thing. Except that we got spoiled. When they didn't sleep well, it was rough because it was so unusual. One night in particular had Chandler absolutely inconsolable. Mike eventually gave up on sleep and took him downstairs to the playroom so that Tyler and I could get some sleep. In the morning, I went downstairs to find Chandler and Mike asleep on the couch. Mike told me how bad he felt for Chandler and he was really hurting from teething. He said his gums were white, which we both knew was normal when teething. Then Chandler started to stir and I saw the white that Mike was referring too. I was horrified! That was not teething white gums. Something was very wrong. I was already calculating the fastest route to the hospital when my mother's instinct had me put my finger on the white patch. It felt strange. So I moved my finger a little and it started to peel off. Yeah, it was the tag to one of their stuffed animals. Chandler had chewed the tag off during the night. Typical rookie parent mistake. We took all of the tags off the rest of their stuffed animals. And I was so glad that I had not taken a trip to the ER to find that out. How embarrassing that would have been!