Last night several interesting things occurred. To begin, Emma asked to sleep in her own bed. This was terrific news as you can imagine the difficulty a child sleeping in the parent’s bed presents, while one of the parents (Richard) is delegated to the child’s bed. Forget about getting adequate sleep, the very arrangement is cause for grumpiness to all parties. So Emma demanded she sleep in her own room. Down went the ‘water proof” mattress cover, on went the alarm – she had wet our bed the past two nights in a row – and off Richard and I went to sleep in our own bed, even if for only a few hours. Sure enough, Emma appeared by my bedside at 2:00AM.
The difference was, we were not woken by her screaming, “Mommy come! Mommy come!” which is typically what happens when she wakes in the middle of the night. The wails increasing in volume and frequency with every second until one of us goes to console her. If left ignored she will simply scream louder until Nic has woken up too. No one could ever accuse Emma of being incapable of problem solving on a grand scale.
Last night, however, was different. There were no screams, no tears, just a small body appearing at my side. “Hi Mommy!” She said when my eyes opened.
“Hey Em,” I said.
And then she ran off to go pee in the toilet, unprompted, while Richard made his way out of our bed and into hers. Emma slipped under the covers next to me and eventually went back to sleep without soiling the sheets.
In the morning Merlin, no doubt, taking his revenge on Emma for threatening him with the washing machine yesterday woke her by meowing loudly in her ear and pawing at her nose to ensure she was fully awake and aware he required some attention. Emma carelessly pushed him off the bed before rolling over and attempting to go back to sleep. Merlin, not the least undone by her lack of affection, leaped back onto the bed and sat on top of her hip.
“Come on Em. Time to get up and get ready for school,” I said.
“No,” Emma said, burrowing deeper under the covers. “Make pancakes,” Emma said, hopefully.
“No pancakes today Em. You have to get ready for school. We don’t have time,” I said.
“Pancakes,” Emma said, whimpering quietly.
“No pancakes. How about cereal?” I asked.
“No, pancakes,” Emma grumbled.
“Don’t you want some cereal? I have to go to work soon, but I have time to get you some cereal,” I said.
“No!”
“Okay,” I said.
Five minutes later Emma appeared in the kitchen. “Cereal?” She asked looking at Richard.
“Sure Emma. Coming right up,” he said.
Before I left for work I looked at the bedwetting chart we’ve been keeping since June 9th when we began this whole thing. After a rocky first two weeks, Emma has wet the bed three times in the last month and a half, with two of those times being this past week.
Go figure.
I’m all out of theories.
