This month’s blog is written by Erica Moore: Writer, Interior designer and mom to two boys. You can find more of Erica’s hilarious work here.
The word sleep comes from the Roman God Somnus. Somnus was an okay guy, he lived in the underworld and had some pretty serious relatives, like a half brother, Mors (aka Death – yikes!). Somnus, God of sleep, also apparently had a thousand kids, which is the part of the story that makes zero sense to me. I only have two sons and I can barely function, let alone find the time to have sex 998 more times. On the other hand, being a parent to a thousand children would likely result in some serious sleepy late nights, so maybe there is some merit to this tale?
Last night I was ready for Somnus to stroll through my door, take me by the hand and lead me towards the darkness. Take me Somnus, literally. I was ready to sleep again. Ready to turn this baby into a sleeping champion; a kid that adores and thrives on rest.
I received a detailed and professional plan from our consultant Amanda. A schedule and system of approach tailored to our baby, our home and most importantly, our goal to train this child to drift off to the underworld where he would emerge a restored symbol of tranquility. I opened our plan and I swear a golden, shimmering halo floated above my laptop and I could hear angels in chorus singing “Hallelujah” as I scrolled through the choreographed steps needed to win the battle of rest. There may be tears; there may be objection – but my husband and I were ready for combat.
We followed our plan to the letter. We even took some extra measures, like giving baby the master bedroom to himself so our presence did not cast shadow on the heavenly blueprint (also my husband snores). Living in a small Toronto home this meant that we were without a bedroom – so like the desperate motivated soldiers we were, we decided to improvise and dragged two small single mattresses out of hiding and set up camp in the narrow hallway, just outside of the bedroom door.
Laying head to head in my hallway we waited for the ball to drop, for the plan to fail, for the screams and cries to shake our resolve. But that didn’t happen. Was baby a master of deception? Was he calling our bluff? Was this all just a nasty hustle? Or had Mors, the brother of Somnus showed up instead. Maybe the baby wasn’t wailing because he had simply perished. Damn it, why couldn’t I enjoy this peaceful quiet, laying on the floor of my hallway, hugging a dusty stair bannister like a normal person? Mom terror (likely one of Somnus’s many kids) had stepped in to crash my party. So instead of sleeping I lay awake pondering the worst case scenario. After about 10 minutes of mental anguish I demanded my husband creep into the room. I listened carefully and the only thing I could hear was my husbands gentle footsteps creeping back to our corridor camp site, “he’s just sleeping, he’s fine”.
Victory! A sleeping child. We get to go to sleep, we have finally seduced Somnus into our home! But then a second strange thing happened, I was so giddy about the opportunity to sleep that I could not, in fact, sleep. I was laying on the floor, relatively comfortable, thinking about how great it would be to sleep, without actually drifting to sleep. Perhaps it was I that needed to be trained all along?