Cave People

Jon and I are officially cave people. It's not just that 98% of all communication in our house takes the form of grunts and gestures or we occasionally decorate with hand prints and food stuffs. No, we are "cavers" for a whole different reason.

Remember the whole 'we're getting rid of pacifiers' thing? Yeah... See, here's the thing. We did get rid of them. Since the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we had remained strong. Not a single "ba-see" had crossed Miss Maddie's lips, and whenever she asked for them, we reminded her that we had said "Bye-bye, paci", which seemed to work. She still cried before going to sleep now and then, but overall, we were pleased that going paci-free had gone so smoothly. Then, we made a rookie mistake.

We assumed, quite naively it appears, that going to bed in a strange place would prove no different than going to bed at home. So, when we packed up the car and headed to my parents' house for Christmas, we didn't take a single pacifier. Not one. Not even a teething pacifier, which isn't really a pacifier but may have worked in a pinch. "We" were idealistic fools.

By 3:30 a.m. on December 26th, we had realized the error of our ways. In fact, I'm pretty sure that six of the nine people in my parents' house had come to the conclusion that our ways just plain sucked. Being that all their children and their children's significant others had come home for the holidays, space at Casa de Webster was tight. Maddie, Jon, and I were all in the same room, and she was in the dreaded pack 'n' play, which is not an ideal situation. (Since day three in our home, the Madster has done better sleeping in her own room. I blame Jon's rumbling earthquake of a snoring problem.) At roughly 1 a.m., she woke up, and seeing us in the room, proceeded to stand in her bed saying "Mama, Mama, Mama" over and over until I took her out of her bed and into ours. However, as usual, she had no interest in sleeping in our bed. She just wanted to play, and with that many people in the house, there was no "cry it out" option and no place to go.

As time progressed and everyone grew increasingly tired and irritable, each attempt to calm and relax her made her angrier and angrier. Finally, Jon tried giving her some warm milk, and this seemed to work--until it was gone, at which point the real, hysterical screaming started. He suggested going out to try and find a pacifier, but I resisted. I was afraid it would set us back to square 1, and I was not prepared to give up ground so easily, but when she wasn't calm by 3 a.m. and we were starting to whisper-yell at each other, I changed my mind and (because Maddie refused to come to me at that point but then screamed when I left the room) ventured out in the absolutely freezing, snow-blowing night in search of pacifiers. It probably goes without saying that in Great Bend, KS, population 15,500, nothing was open at 3:30 a.m. the night after Christmas. (Even though the lights in both Wal-Mart and Dillion's were on, and I thought very mean, non-repeatable things about the people who stood near the doors and shook their heads at me as I trudged back to my car, in my pajamas, through the snow and wind.)

By the time I got back, she was asleep, and I crawled into bed for two more hours of sleep before being woken up at 6 a.m. From now on, we're keeping the newly dubbed "travel-pacifiers" in each car in hopes of avoiding more "Night After Christmases."

P. S. - For those of you who are wondering, we did purchase pacifiers the next day, and Saturday night went just fine. She then slept for almost two hours on the way home, took and hour and a half nap that afternoon (from which we had to wake her for fear that she wouldn't go to bed that night), went to bed at 7:15 p.m., and had to be woken up at 7:15 a.m. this morning. If only the same could be said of her parents.