Monday, January 08, 2007

A Boy in the Basement

I think that my heart broke a little last night. And to be honest, my husband's too. Yesterday was the big move for Kaelen. He moved out of his current bedroom which was right beside ours, to the room downstairs. All in preparation for our newest addition to make her arrival. Unfortunately, the room beside ours is too small to fit both a bed and crib in so someone had to go downstairs. Ironically, it was Kaelen who volunteered rather excitedly too as Mommy wanted to put the baby down there. Instead, Kaelen enthusiastically jumped around and convinced us that is where he wanted to sleep.

So, two hours later of moving furniture, clothing and animal friends, Kaelen's room was ready and our little boy danced around in delight in his new surroundings. For the rest of the day, he only wanted to play, dance and sleep in his "big boy" room. The reality of him being downstairs from me didn't hit me until bed time. And, to be honest, it was really hard to hold back the tears. There were tears of sadness that my boy was growing up and was showing signs of not needing me, to tears of oh my gosh, I feel like I am displacing my son.

I laid in bed listening to my husband tucking Kaelen into bed for the night and listened as my husband told our son how much we loved him and if he needed Mommy or Daddy, to just call out for us because we would be able to hear him (via a baby monitor) and we were right above him (as in our bedroom - which is not). Hubby joined me shortly thereafter in bed, with glassy looking eyes (although I am sure that he would dispute it) and with a sad little smile to one another, we laid in bed listening to Kaelen sleeping soundly. It was obvious that he had no issues in his new room and being away from us.

Neither Paul nor I had a good sleep last night. I think that we were both waiting with anticipation for an excuse to go downstairs and check on the little man. For me, despite my awkwardness, I would have made it downstairs in record time should Kaelen have even peeped, just to climb into his bed and gather him into my arms.

When I went downstairs to awaken Kaelen to get ready for daycare this morning, he was all snuggled and content as can be in his bed. At one point, he even told me that he didn't want to go to daycare and instead would rather stay sleeping in his new bedroom. Instead I promised him that we would play when we all got home from work tonight. His response? "And Mommy sleep in my new room too?".

Yes, Kaelen. Mommy truly would love nothing better than to. You see, as silly as it sounds, I miss him already. I miss my little boy even though he is ten steps down some stairs and a corner away.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, that is a very difficult thing to do is place your baby on a different floor from where you are sleeping. You never completely fall asleep as that trusty monitor is always close to your head. I can't tell you how many times I considered moving to a different house or making additions to the existing one. She's perfectly fine down there, it's just us that have the problem!

kate said...

o man. you're breaking my heart here.
i can't handle the thought. sometimes just imagining the separations to come is unbearable. i feel, at times, like i'll fall apart when my boy "doesn't need me anymore." those milestone steps along the way can be so painful. but, on the flipside, i guess it's good that he's so comfy in his new room and content. not freaked out.

Anonymous said...

Well, I've never had a child upstairs or downstairs from me but I do know the feeling. It's hard on a momOn the bright side, it could have been much harder to move him downstairs. You are very blessed with such a well adjusted little boy!

sari said...

I can totally relate to this right now!! I got teary eyed just reading this, but it's nice that your boy is so happy about it.

He'll still want snuggling, don't worry. :-)

Lesley said...

We faced the same issue when I was 5 months pregnant with our second son. I couldn't bear the thought of having Joseph downstairs at 20 months so we decided to buy a house with 3 bedrooms upstairs.We moved Joseph into his big boy room when we moved in to the new house and his crib went right into his baby brother-to-be's room. We were looking at replacing our starter home with a long term one and just did it a little sooner.
Happy to hear that Kaelen was excited about his new room!