A (Small) Measure of Independence

Something almost miraculous is beginning to happen. Twice so far this week, Ben has gotten himself out of bed in the morning.

Yep, that's it. That's the miracle. One of the quirky things about my son is -- up until now at least -- once you put him in his bed, he stayed there until someone came to get him out. Now, when he turned two and we had just switched him from his crib to a toddler bed, this was great. We were not one of those unfortunate parents who had to wrestle their kid back into bed every 5 minutes. When Ben was ready to get up in the morning, he would call for me. If it was very early I'd try to ignore him for a while, and occasionally he would go back to sleep or at least be quiet for a while. When I was ready, I'd go get him up.

Over the last few months I started worrying about this. What if something happened to me during the night sometime when Joel was away at a conference or something? How long would it take Ben to get out of bed and come looking for me? Would he stay in bed all day, calling for me, wondering why I wasn't coming? Yes, I actually worried about things like this. What can I say, I'm a little neurotic.

I started broaching the subject with him. "You know, Ben," I'd say, "you don't have to wait for me to come get you in the morning. You can get out of bed yourself."

"But I'm too scared to," he'd say.

Fast forward to this morning. I'd gotten up at 6:15, nursed Rebecca, and put her in her swing. She was just starting to drift back to sleep. I was just starting to drift back to sleep. And then over the baby monitor I heard Ben bounding into Rebecca's room. "Hi Rebecca!" Rebecca laughed. Ben laughed. More laughter and thumping about upstairs ensued.

I groaned and put my head under the pillow. "Go back to bed Ben!" I mumbled crossly.