A Night of Firsts

July 27

Guess what happened on this night?

It was a night of uninterrupted sleep.

Yes, I wrote that correctly.

A night with no interruptions in the REM sleep. A night where your dreams floated through your head. A night when you wake up in the morning in a panic because 1) you are a terrible mom who didn’t hear her boy wake up in the middle of the night 2) you need to quickly check on Little Guy because he must not be breathing and 3) you wonder how little Big Poppy is going to think of you for not hearing our boy in the middle of the night.

After a quick check on Little Guy’s breathing, seriously, I did that, and armed with the knowledge that Little Guy did indeed sleep through the night, I let out a huge sigh of relief. I don’t need to worry about any Mommie Dearest books [yet].

Big Poppy and I wistfully hoped that this was the beginning of a new stage for Little Guy. Neither one of us held our breath (and it’s a good thing otherwise we would have had to hold it for a LONG time) that this is the new normal. It did remind me how quickly things change – for all of us.

Jeter sleeps in our room. The first few nights back home were normal sleep nights for Jeter. However, about a week after we returned home, Big Poppy and I noticed something interesting about Jeter. Whenever Little Guy woke up in the middle of the night, Jeter would slowly trudge over to his kennel and go back to sleep. Now this is interesting because Jeter never sleeps in his kennel. He is always on the floor next to our bed.

It got me to thinking that has much as Jeter likes having Little Guy as a new buddy, it must be a little disrupting for him. Here’s a dog that is use to sleeping all through the night – that changed quickly. Jeter is also use to napping during the day. Now we are home during the day and Jeter does not get the sleep he normally gets in a day. Both the night and day sleep patterns have been interrupted. Poor Jeter, he gets the shaft.

Well, don’t feel too sorry for Jeter. He quickly adjusted and now will nap during the day. I feel a little guilty because he heads to the closet to nap. I guess we all just need to get away now and again. It’s just too bad that Jeter’s “get away” is a closet. (Jeter is also back to sleeping on the floor and doesn’t even flinch if Little Guy gets up during the night.)

Also note worthy, at the time I posted this, Little Guy has had a few more nights of sleeping through the night. Last night was not one of those nights, but I do believe we are on a way to a more and more sleeping through the nights. Yeah us!