Freedom to change

I think everyone should take their small children on a trans-Atlantic trip (and back) twice a year. It's very good for getting yourself out of a rut.

See, the thing is, most of the time I'm a bit bound to The Schedule. Not the one where lunch is at 12.30 and dinner is at 6.00 and nothing can come between the whole family and a properly laid table twice if not three times a day, because we don't really have that one. But sleeping is a bit of a sacred cow, because I'm always afraid that if we do anything to nudge Mabel's patterns (I use the word lightly) off course, it'll all blow up in my face in the middle of the night. Which is silly, really, because for one thing, the patterns are all in my head and definitely not in hers, and for another, it can't really get much worse. (No, Fate, I'm not looking at you. I know it could be worse. I didn't mean it. Go away and read someone else's blog, okay? Julia's updating daily at the moment, and she's a great read.)

Anyway. Once you mess up everyone's sleeping by going five hours out of your time zone for two and a half weeks, and then coming back again, you suddenly have a huge amount of freedom to just keep messing, if you want to. Or make changes, even.

While we were gone, since naps were late and bedtime was later thanks to the time difference, we had a babysitter not once but three times. The first time, I rushed back alone from the conference dinner where I was being regaled with tales of Physicists Gone Bad (not too great a loss there, then) before 10.00, thinking that Mabel would still be wide awake and possibly screeching - in fact, she was balled up asleep on the sofa; though she jumped up with a squawk as soon as she heard my voice, and it took a good hour to get her down again.

The second time, we left them with their granny and went to a grown-up party, full of grown-ups, and wine, and not a child in sight. At 10.00 I was ready to call it quits, not yet having recieved a text message to tell me that Mabel was asleep. (And this was a week later, so she was that much more acclimatised to the time difference, so that much more tired.) A quick enquiry elicited that she had just yawned, would no doubt be out in a minute, and to stay where we were. One hour later (oops), I was definitely on my way out the door when the phone rang and I was greeted with the happy news that she was finally out for the count. I had a large glass of wine and we stayed another hour.

The third time we just went out to dinner locally, and Mabel stayed up with Granny till we came home at 10pm, when I put her to bed. She was just fine.

Monkey, you will note, does not even appear in this discussion because he went to bed with no trouble and fell promptly asleep each time. Henceforth I am not going to worry about him and babysitters.

So now I know that Mabel, if left with someone she likes, will be perfectly fine without me for an evening. She'll either stay up and play or watch DVDs, or she'll fall asleep where she sits. She won't be put to bed, but that's okay.

Last night, I went out as soon as she fell asleep, to drive across the city and pick up a tiny pink pedal-less bike that I'd found on Craigslist. She woke up on the dot of 40 minutes after I'd gone. B said she almost went back to sleep when he lay down with her, but then woke up insead. She was awake when I got home, but went back down easily for me.

So I think my lesson here is not so much that the children are ready for babysitters, but that I'm ready to trust that they'll be, if not asleep, fairly content with someone else at night if I'm not Right There.

At the next moms' night out, I might just stay till closing.