I have a confession to make:  I can't sing. 

I don't know when it happened.  I was in choir my entire youth.  I sang duets and solos in church.  I played Marty in my high school production of Grease.  I did a good job with "Freddy, My Love."  My public, they loved me.

Maybe it was the college and post-college years of pack-a-day smoking.  Maybe it's that I used to sing soprano, and now I should sing alto, but I really don't know how.  Maybe it's that sometimes when you're younger you can do things (I used to be fairly adept at drawing), then when you get older, those talents just poof away, replaced by skills like balancing a checkbook or knowing how to get Microsoft Paint to let you undo more than one thing at a time.  Maybe it was the 13 phone numbers I've had since I left home.  Maybe all that memorizing of useless data fried my vocal chords.

Maybe I could NEVER sing and people were just humoring me this whole time.

I've known for a while I can't sing. When I'm sitting in church, I fake it most of the time.  I pretend I'm attending to the little angel's needs if there are people in the pew in front of me.  My beloved knows I can't sing, but he never knew I could, so like so many things about me he hears but does not believe, he can't fathom me ever having been able to do it. I can't get him to sit through the ancient video recording of Grease.  Maybe because it's on Beta.

I did think, though, that the angel was fooled.  Ever since she was a wee tot, I've been singing to her in the bathtub. Usually "Splish, Splash."  She used to like it.  At least, she pretended to like it.  Then, there was tonight.  I plopped her in the tub, along with her favorite bath toys:  Duckie, Mesh Duckie, Rain, Boat, Walrus Cu Cu Cachu, Frog, Hippo and Fishie.  She splashed away with delight.  Absentmindedly, I began to sing, thinking of New Year's Eve, and how my mother would be giving the little angel a bath while I put on my pretty new hip shirt from a Chicago boutique (thanks, Sister Little) and fun jewely and even high heels and went out on the town with my high school friends, who even to this day offered up booze cruising on gravel roads as a potential option for the evening.

Not that I ever did that in high school, of course.

Halfway through the first verse, the little angel stopped her splashing, Mesh Duckie hanging from one pudgy finger. 

Little Angel:  "Mama, no sing."

I choked on my gum.

Me: "WHAT?"

The little angel looked at me kindly.  She put down Mesh Duckie and studied me with her big, blue eyes.

Little Angel:  "NO SING."

(sob)

I have a confession to make:  I can't sing. 

I don't know when it happened.  I was in choir my entire youth.  I sang duets and solos in church.  I played Marty in my high school production of Grease.  I did a good job with "Freddy, My Love."  My public, they loved me.

Maybe it was the college and post-college years of pack-a-day smoking.  Maybe it's that I used to sing soprano, and now I should sing alto, but I really don't know how.  Maybe it's that sometimes when you're younger you can do things (I used to be fairly adept at drawing), then when you get older, those talents just poof away, replaced by skills like balancing a checkbook or knowing how to get Microsoft Paint to let you undo more than one thing at a time.  Maybe it was the 13 phone numbers I've had since I left home.  Maybe all that memorizing of useless data fried my vocal chords.

Maybe I could NEVER sing and people were just humoring me this whole time.

I've known for a while I can't sing. When I'm sitting in church, I fake it most of the time.  I pretend I'm attending to the little angel's needs if there are people in the pew in front of me.  My beloved knows I can't sing, but he never knew I could, so like so many things about me he hears but does not believe, he can't fathom me ever having been able to do it. I can't get him to sit through the ancient video recording of Grease.  Maybe because it's on Beta.

I did think, though, that the angel was fooled.  Ever since she was a wee tot, I've been singing to her in the bathtub. Usually "Splish, Splash."  She used to like it.  At least, she pretended to like it.  Then, there was tonight.  I plopped her in the tub, along with her favorite bath toys:  Duckie, Mesh Duckie, Rain, Boat, Walrus Cu Cu Cachu, Frog, Hippo and Fishie.  She splashed away with delight.  Absentmindedly, I began to sing, thinking of New Year's Eve, and how my mother would be giving the little angel a bath while I put on my pretty new hip shirt from a Chicago boutique (thanks, Sister Little) and fun jewely and even high heels and went out on the town with my high school friends, who even to this day offered up booze cruising on gravel roads as a potential option for the evening.

Not that I ever did that in high school, of course.

Halfway through the first verse, the little angel stopped her splashing, Mesh Duckie hanging from one pudgy finger. 

Little Angel:  "Mama, no sing."

I choked on my gum.

Me: "WHAT?"

The little angel looked at me kindly.  She put down Mesh Duckie and studied me with her big, blue eyes.

Little Angel:  "NO SING."

(sob)

It's too early for the jury to be out, but that toddler bed sure seems to be working. Last night the little angel slept until SIX A.M.  Of course, in the ultimate parenting irony, I woke up at four and slept fitfully until six, waiting for the other Stride Rite to drop.

She was rewarded with kitty stickers and the pleasure of wearing her new Fussy t-shirt.

It's too early for the jury to be out, but that toddler bed sure seems to be working. Last night the little angel slept until SIX A.M.  Of course, in the ultimate parenting irony, I woke up at four and slept fitfully until six, waiting for the other Stride Rite to drop.

She was rewarded with kitty stickers and the pleasure of wearing her new Fussy t-shirt.

Setting:  Ridiculously Large Vehicle.  Driving Home From Christmas.

Me:  "You know, she really isn't sleeping alone."

Beloved:  (removes headphones) "Eh?"

Me:  "Maybe we should just put her in the toddler bed now.  I mean, it can't get any worse. She hasn't slept through the night in eight days."

Beloved:  "Really?"

Me:  "What the hell?"

This is how important parenting decisions are made.

So we drove home, dropped off all our bags, rescued Sybil from the Pet Hotel and drove straight to Toys R Us, where we purchased the second-to-last white toddler bed available for the bargain-basement price of $70. 

Yesterday afternoon while I labored over a training manual, my beloved put together the bed, took apart the crib, put a latch on the closet door and installed a custom gate across her bedroom door.  The transformation is complete. Her room is now a little girl's room,  complete with bins of books and toys, stuffed animals, dolls and a few musical instruments.  Elmo takes up half the bed, but she doesn't care.  She luvs him.

Right before we went to pick her up, I foolishly typed in "transition to toddler bed night waking" in Google and spent about twenty minutes reading horror stories of children who Never Again Slept after getting the toddler bed. 

Me:  "Honey?  Do you think it's dumb that we just got rid of the crib without a good-bye ritual?  Should we have let her choose which to sleep in?  We didn't let her pick out sheets with characters on them!  What will we do?"

Beloved:  "Judas Priest.  You have been reading the Internet again, haven't you?"

Me:  (stunned silence)

Well, we went to Target anyway to see if she wanted to pick out something for her big-girl bed, but it was all ugly and picked over, so we ended up leaving with nothing but a pooh blanket that she doesn't even like.  However, she went to bed fine and slept until 4 a.m. - four hours later than she has been sleeping for the past week.  Apparently, once she was up and realized she could reach her toys, she still wanted to party, but I hope in time we can get past that.

I mean, how could you resist it? 

Setting:  Ridiculously Large Vehicle.  Driving Home From Christmas.

Me:  "You know, she really isn't sleeping alone."

Beloved:  (removes headphones) "Eh?"

Me:  "Maybe we should just put her in the toddler bed now.  I mean, it can't get any worse. She hasn't slept through the night in eight days."

Beloved:  "Really?"

Me:  "What the hell?"

This is how important parenting decisions are made.

So we drove home, dropped off all our bags, rescued Sybil from the Pet Hotel and drove straight to Toys R Us, where we purchased the second-to-last white toddler bed available for the bargain-basement price of $70. 

Yesterday afternoon while I labored over a training manual, my beloved put together the bed, took apart the crib, put a latch on the closet door and installed a custom gate across her bedroom door.  The transformation is complete. Her room is now a little girl's room,  complete with bins of books and toys, stuffed animals, dolls and a few musical instruments.  Elmo takes up half the bed, but she doesn't care.  She luvs him.

Right before we went to pick her up, I foolishly typed in "transition to toddler bed night waking" in Google and spent about twenty minutes reading horror stories of children who Never Again Slept after getting the toddler bed. 

Me:  "Honey?  Do you think it's dumb that we just got rid of the crib without a good-bye ritual?  Should we have let her choose which to sleep in?  We didn't let her pick out sheets with characters on them!  What will we do?"

Beloved:  "Judas Priest.  You have been reading the Internet again, haven't you?"

Me:  (stunned silence)

Well, we went to Target anyway to see if she wanted to pick out something for her big-girl bed, but it was all ugly and picked over, so we ended up leaving with nothing but a pooh blanket that she doesn't even like.  However, she went to bed fine and slept until 4 a.m. - four hours later than she has been sleeping for the past week.  Apparently, once she was up and realized she could reach her toys, she still wanted to party, but I hope in time we can get past that.

I mean, how could you resist it? 

We may be breeding vanity by videotaping the little angel's holiday fun.  We decided to drag the camera along, considering we have filmed barely sixty minutes of footage in twenty months.  Yesterday, we hooked up the camera to the television to show my parents the little angel's first steps.

She was immediately transfixed.  She shrieked with delight, crying out her own name and pounding the screen.  She stood directly in front of the screen, despite frequent bodily removal, lovingly caressing her own image.  From then on, every time someone touched the television, she jumped up and called out her name, wanting more than her fifteen minutes of fame.

I'm considering changing her name to Jessica Simpson.

Apparently, it wasn't the nightlight.  After one successful night with her new nightlight, moon-like and glowing like a Lunesta butterfly, the little angel has woken up two nights in a row, earlier than ever before.  Whereas before it was like 4 a.m., now it's 2, with a whole night stretched in front of me like so many lost hours.

I've been keeping a sleep log for her (although it doubles as one for me, since I certainly am not sleeping when she is not sleeping).  At present count, she has slept through the night 15 out of the last 41 days, a 37% success rate.  In that time, we have once again tried:

1. Ferber - by the book. We tried this for two weeks.  No response.  Cried every night she was actually up for at least 45 minutes to two hours.  Inexplicably slept some nights.
2. Back rubbing. Inexplicably slept some nights.
3. Sitting in her room, Supernanny style, closer and closer to the door.  Same thing - awake for 45 minutes to two hours.  Unfortunately, this was really painful because we had to be sitting up and watching to see if she fell asleep. Inexplicably slept some nights.
4. Sleeping on the floor of her room - this is what we're on now.  My neck feels like the days of crashing on a friend's futon after a late night at the bar.  These days, though, I'm not even getting drunk or anything. Inexplicably slept some nights.

Usually, by around five, we give into the cries for "MIL!  MIL!" and take her downstairs to the sofa.  She falls asleep immediately and sleeps like a rock.  A sweating, red-headed, 29-pounds-on-my-sternum rock.

And it's getting a little crowded on the couch.

We're going to get her a toddler bed near her second birthday. We have to come up with some money first, and put up a gate, and various other things.  At this point it seems silly to try to fix her almost, because tomorrow we leave for my parents' house for the holiday, then we'll be back there a week later to celebrate New Year's in the Old Market with my high-school buddies (who will ditch their children on her parents and hang with us in a hotel).  Then immediately after that, my beloved goes on a week-long business trip to St. Louis.  There is probably no chance of "fixing" her in the next month with all this chaos.

So, the couch.

It's green.  It's eight years old.  Despite three professional cleanings, it smells of baby vomit, cat and sweat when you are face down in it's green-ness.  It has a board under the cushions to prevent sagging. This board is ineffective.  Yet, the couch. It seems to us the last bastion we are trying to protect is OUR BED.  Is this worthwhile?  Am I really doing anything different by using the couch instead of our bed?

I like to think so.  But really, I don't know.  I've now read eight different books on sleep, from Ferber to Sears to myriad other unknowns.  There is one that I liked. It had a pull-out mantra for tired parents that contained sayings like "You are not a bad parent" and "You are not causing this night-waking."  My best friend S. is not sure why I even feel guilty or would not pick her up at night, although to be fair, S. is childless and probably does not fully understand the continuity of the problem, the hours spent staring at the glowy-green Lunesta nightlight and wondering if I will ever touch the butterfly again.

Damn that butterfly.  I want to eat it for dinner. 

Yesterday I got a call that my good friend's father passed away.  He was 62.  That's not the saddest part of the story, though. The saddest part is that he passed away while he was packing to come spend a week with her, her husband, her brother and her son (and my godson). 

She went to the airport to pick him up, little J. in tow.  She waited for him to get off the plane.  He never did.  She went to the airline and found out he hadn't been on the plane.  She assumed he'd missed the plane, called his house, called his friends.  She said she was picturing him at the United counter frantically trying to book another flight. She was not picturing him dead in his chair  in Florida, half-packed suitcase spread open on the bed.

She finally called 911, and the police had to go through the process of breaking and entering.  This entire ordeal took hours.  Today she's on a flight to Florida to go settle his affairs.  All she could say between sobs was that he was supposed to be there, in her house, with her son, with her.

How many times have I realized I was supposed to be somewhere, but was not?  How many friends and family members did I disappoint as I went on with my own little agenda, not realizing they wanted me there, just at that moment?  The story of C.'s father slowed down time for me yesterday.  As I rocked the little angel to sleep, I did pray that she would never stand in an airport waiting for me to not get off a plane.  I can't really control that - can't control fate - but I can make sure that she knows I am totally there for her, in the moment, in these precious days and years we have together.

I called my parents after that and told them I loved them. They know that I love them, but I told them again anyway.  It's a good thing to do.  It can't be done often enough.