The year is 2026.
Country-Fried Daddy and I have just dropped Belly off for her freshman year at a prestigious university, which awarded her a full scholarship, plus a little bonus for me and CFD, since we did such a great job raising her.
We move an 18-year-old Belly into her dorm room, meet her roommate, shed some tears and drive away.
Later, in our newly empty home, CFD and I talk about what to do with the rest of our years now that our girls are grown. We discuss exotic travel plans. We talk about downsizing. CFD mentions possibly buying a boat.
We go to sleep with the bittersweet knowledge that our youngest is off in the world without us.
And then, at 5 a.m., the phone rings.
It is Belly’s roommate. She is distraught.
“Belly woke up screaming and I can’t get her back to sleep!”
I advise her to hold Belly in her lap and read her “Llama, Llama, Mad At Mama.”
She calls back 15 minutes later.
“It didn’t work.”
I advise her to rock Belly, to sing her bizarre versions of “Hush Little Baby” that don’t rhyme or make sense. I advise her to go to bed earlier at night, because CFD and I spent a lifetime trying to solve Belly’s sleep troubles and never succeeded.
The roommate is crying.
I feel bad for her, but I hang up anyway, roll over, and go back to sleep until noon.
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I hate to tell you this but CFD’s sibling didn’t sleep through the night until he was 3 —although CFD was sleeping through at 6 weeks – bless his heart!
And btw, what is this about stipends for the parental units when their offspring receive scholarships? Where and why didn’t CFD go there?
Twitter: countryfried
March 12, 2010 at 6:59 pm
She sleeps through the night lately (although I probably just cursed myself); she just starts her days before most of the population.
You are hysterically funny!
I don’t think you slept through many a night, but I am sure you were up at the crack of dawn and as I have said before…….I placed you in front of the news with your toys and went back to sleep. You turned out ok, give it a try.
Twitter: countryfried
March 12, 2010 at 7:00 pm
She won’t do it. She wants to play…or aggressively point to our body parts until we are forced to get up or lose our eyeballs.
Option 1: Take her nap away and keep her up late!!! Option 2: You and CFD go to bed when she does. Option 3: How about life size blow ups of you that she can converse with at 5 am? Option 4: Deal with it!
Ba ha ha! This is a great take on the best piece of wisdom my MIL ever gave me (that *her* MIL gave her), when I was in the midst of toilet training: “No one goes to college wearing diapers.”
And if you’re feeling guilty about Belly’s roommate, you can always send her some industrial-strength earplugs.
hahahahahaha! That is so funny, CFM.
Ahhhhhh, sleeping till noon. We’ll get to do that again one day, won’t we? Won’t we??
Evan didn’t sleep through the night until he was over 3 and 1/2. We were horrible parents letting him sleep in bed with us when he awoke because the self-soothe method and the supernanny method DID NOT WORK. So she’ll grow out of. My boys wake up before the crack of dawn. They are forced to cuddle until 6. Or you can do what ck did with ONE. Go ask her. I do NOT recommend taking away naps or keeping her up late. She will just get up extremely early and be a real pain in the butt all day due to lack of sleep. Good luck and Godspeed. It’s only a phase, but it sucks @ss.
auntie may clearly has not read the sleep books! keeping her up late won’t work – we know that
Is it cruel to require her to entertain herself until at least 6 am?
Twitter: katydid6
March 13, 2010 at 9:15 am
Is it horrible that I am so looking forward to the first Saturday my children are in college, when I will set my alarm for 5:45 a.m. and call them. Just to say hi and see how they’re doing. Payback is hell.
I am convinced my son will need me to put him to sleep in his dorm room. And he’ll have to be fondling my ear canal, too. I see no end in sight to this problem.
Ha! That’s great! For the record, our first-born (who was the worst sleeper in the world) went off to college last fall; and so far we haven’t received any distraught calls from his roommates.
Saw you on Motherlode – nice to meet you!
Twitter: noreturnmom
March 14, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I love this! I will have send my kids off to college with extra tissues for the roommates, too.
Hope things turn around a little sooner, though.
The most wonderful age is when they want to get up before the sun, and language cognition skills have kicked in so that when you say, “You cannot get up until the sun does” they understand, crawl into bed with you and go back to sleep.”
Sadly, and I speak from experience, when they go off to college, and the phone doesn’t ring at 5 a.m., you will be a little sad – because you have all the solutions to their problems and they do not appreciate that you are the world’s best resource:)
I wish you a peaceful full night’s sleep:)
Hi, I just saw your blog over on Motherlode. I love this post! I have an almost 3 year old who JUST started sleeping through the night on a regular basis. Up until now, my mantra has been, only 16 years until he goes to college and it’s not my problem anymore. It didn’t occur to me that his roommate might give me a call!
Twitter: lostsuburbbliss
March 15, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Oh man, that’s a good one! Here’s hoping that’s one scenario that doesn’t come true. Otherwise, you’ll be going through an awful lot of merlot through the years…
Twitter: willblogforshoe
March 15, 2010 at 2:52 pm
So stinkin’ funny! I hope my Bug is her roommate, b/c she so deserves to be kept up!
Twitter: objectivityrach
March 16, 2010 at 6:22 pm
LOL!
Oh YES, I totallllllly get this.
I certainly thought we’d be done with the screaming in the night thing by the age of three, but alas, it is not true.
At least we know that there is an end in sight. We can disconnect the phones when they go to college.