We went to Omaha to rock on for New Year's Eve with two of my friends from high school.  We didn't realize until we got there that the group also included four of my friend D's college fraternity brothers and their wives, none of whom we knew prior to last night.  However, a friend of D's is a friend of ours, and we all got along pretty well.

Our first order of business was to drive to a restaurant in the Old Market, where we had reservations for a fabulous meal.  I had never been to this particular restaurant before, so I was wondering what it would be like. Our table was upstairs.  As we walked up the stairs, the waiter told us how much he liked being upstairs because it was so beautiful.

(Let me pause here to say that I grew up near Omaha and therefore tend to be as hard on it as a mother on her first-born child.  Also, I lived in fabulous Chicago for fifteen months and had a full-glass-window office on Michigan Avenue the entire time. So my standards are maybe a little bit high.)

We reached the top of the stairs to see a bunch of church-basement banquet tables set with white linen, and those chairs you only see in either legion halls or bingo parlors, the ones that are edged in chrome and have cushy, foamy seats and backs.  There were gorgeous windows, but the view appeared to me to be of a parking lot, even though the joint was called Rick's Boatyard Cafe.  I was trying to figure out where the boats were the whole time; wondering, in fact, if maybe the only boat was the one they missed with the upstairs decor.

After dinner, we were told that one member of our party was pregnant and wanted to go back to drink in the hotel bar to avoid cigarette smoke. 

(Now, I feel for her. I had wicked terrible morning sickness when I was in my first trimester with the little angel.  I could actually smell Guatemala on the produce in the grocery store. I could smell the Guatemalan donkeys that lived near the produce.  But still, it was New Year's Eve.)

We all piled back into D's friends' minivan, which we had taken to the restaurant.  When the driver turned on the radio, "Man In Motion" from the St. Elmo's Fire soundtrack filled the minivan.  I was sitting on a plastic Happy Meal Elmo.  I felt a little dizzy for a moment, as though I might've accidentally left my personality somewhere back at the restaurant. 

After about an hour of hotel bar, I was starting to get hivey.  I convinced my beloved to help me rally the troops. We took the hotel shuttle down into the Old Market and entered one of my favorite bars there, Mr. Toad's.  The bar's walls are covered in books and stained glass, and it has a very rabbit-hole effect.

As we were standing around, talking, drinking and waiting for midnight, one of the other women motioned to the twentysomethings carousing in the corner.  We were all in our early to mid-thirties.

J.:  "It's funny how when you're in your twenties you behave like an absolute ass in the bars."

Other J:  "Yeah, but you think you're so cool. You think everyone in the bar is looking at you, wishing they were you."

K:  "I think I just saw that one do some cocaine."

Me:  "Really?  Where?"  (crane neck)

J:  "I wonder if there were people like us back in the bar when we were twenty-one, laughing at us."

This is a sobering thought.

J:  "The funny thing, though, is that I still feel like I'm twenty-one."

I pause to reflect on this.  I don't feel twenty-one, per se, but probably twenty-seven.  I could probably be twenty-seven forever.  I got married when I was twenty-seven.

Other J:  "My aunt is fifty.  She told me she still feels thirty, but her body doesn't do quite the same things anymore.  Isn't it crazy that our grandmothers probably felt thirty when we were their grandkids?"

I down a glass of champagne. The idea of my grandmothers Dorothy and Helen feeling thirty while teaching me to bait fishhooks and make cookies is freaking me out.  What if there is only one consciousness?  What if we are all really thirty for the rest of our lives after passing that fateful milestone? 

Midnight came, and we drank heartily, watching the twenty-somethings make out with each other like Will Ferrel after doing beer bongs in Old School.  Then, shortly after, we immediately left the bar.  We were tired, and the whole aura of the bar was starting to give me the weebie-jeebies.  The forced enthusiasm, the mismatched countdowns, the stench of cigars in cramped quarters.

My beloved and I rode the elevator up, took nice, hot showers and snuggled up in the king-sized, angel-free bed.  It was 1:37 a.m. 

Beloved:  "You know, that was fun, but I almost could've just hung out at home."

I thought about it.  I had this need to go out this year, to do something.  I had a great time, but the longer I go, the more I question who I am becoming.  I told Pa this when we got back to pick up the angel. 

"Welcome to the rest of your life," he said.

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.