He came to dance dance dance........

Yesterday, Jonah was trying on dress clothes.  "Why are we trying on clothes?" he asks Rachel.  "Because we're going to a wedding tonight," she replies.  This lead's Jonah to a series of questions:

• Will there be a swimming pool? (no)
• Will there be a ping pong table? (no)
• Will Carley be there? (no - Carley is his second cousin from Wisconsin)
• Will they play Dynamite? (Jonah's favorite song)

These are things our son associates with weddings.  All of these things happened at his Aunt Colleen's wedding last year.  The hotel we stayed at had pool and ping pong, and Carley was/is his bestest friend in the whole world.  Rachel, had to tell him that sadly, probably none of these things would be happening last night, and we resigned ourselves to the fact that Joanh was most likely going to be very difficult to control at the wedding.

We drove up to the wedding (for a former co-worker of mine), and Jonah and Jocie both slept in the car on the way up, which was nice.  We got to the wedding, and instantly Jonah has made a friend in Genevieve, a cute little girl who said more words in the three hours we were there than I think I've said in my entire life.  They got along great, holding hands as we went to take our seats, and insisting that they sit next to each other during the ceremony.  So far, so good. 

The ceremony was simple, brief, and well done, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Joy - the bride - looked fantastic (that's a requirement of wedding recaps, to mention how great the bride looked, but that doesn't make it an less true) and then we were on to the reception.  Jonah didn't understand why he couldn't sit with Genevieve (apparently the idea of assigned seating doesn't register with him) and his dinner of two dinner rolls and fresh cut pineapple barely held his attention.  Jonah and I excused ourselves from the reception hall to run around in the lobby with Genevieve and Dailey, the son of a friend who has a penchant for smiling and sprinting towards the nearest open door. 

As the kids are playing "ring around the rosy" I hear the bride and groom starting their first dance.  I tempted Jonah with the promise of cake to come.  A few more dances with the father of the bride and the mother of the groom, and then the DJ says "And now Joy and Jonathan would like to invite all their friends and family to the dance floor to join them" over the beats of a faintly familiar song.....Taio Cruz's "Dynamite"

You've never seen a three year old so happy.  Jonah's eyes lit up, and he's practically dragging me to the dance floor.  "C'mon Dad, it's DYNAMITE!"  From there the night is a blur of dance circles around Jonah, bridesmaids and even the bride grabbing his hand to dance with him, and Jonah doing a combination of booty shakes, breakdancing moves, and "throwing his hands up in air."  At some point, he ended up with glitter on his forehead - glitter that is still there this morning.  The most common question asked of me last night was "did you teach him these moves?"  I reluctantly had to say no, and admit that my son is a better dancer at 3 than his father is at 32 - or at any point in his life for that matter.  I sheepishly said no and muttered something about his daycare provider teaching hip hop dance, but by that time, whomever had asked the question was already back to dancing with Jonah. 

We ended up leaving at around 10:45, over the protests of "Dad, just one more song!  Just one more song then I promise we can go!  PLEEEEAAAAASSSSEEEE???" Five minutes down the road, Jonah asked one more question before falling asleep:  "Dad, can we go to that wedding again tomorrow?"

Rachel and I had a conversation about how we had a party monster on our hands, and nervously shook our heads as we pictured what life is going to be like 13 years down the road when we're trying to rein this kid in.

The Big Bed Debate

Alright, I'll admit it.  Our three year old son sleeps in the same bed as us.  We've tried having him sleep in his own bed with varying levels of success over the past three years, but inevitably he ends up back in bed with us.  Rachel and I decided that our own sleep was valuable as well, and it made more sense to get us all to bed at a decent time rather than having us all up super late battling over where everyone slept.  I don't mind having him bed with us, but I wouldn't mind NOT having him in bed with us either.  Now that we've got another little one, Rachel has commented that we need a bigger bed to accomodate all four of us.  My response has been tongue in cheek - Nope, there'll only be three of us in bed because I'm heading for the guest room.

Jonah, like most young kids, doesn't really like being alone.  The only time he's on his own really is in the evening, after he's had his dinner and his bath, and is in our bed watching cartoons while Rachel and I watch something a little more mature (I know, I know - to say that Bachelor Pad is more "mature" than Hong Kong Phooey is debatable at best, but just go with me).  Inevitably, he falls asleep with the television on.  This is where the dilemma truly begins.  Do I risk waking him up, only to have him whine and complain that he wants to watch more cartoons, or do I just gently nudge him to the middle of the bed and let him keep sleeping?  I have a long, well documented history of taking the path of least resistance at every opportunity, so he stays. 

I don't know where kids get the energy they do, but they're constantly moving, even when in a deep sleep.  Jonah's like a compass in the bermuda triangle - he has no concept of north and south.  He loves to sleep sideways, making our family look like a giant "H" on the mattress.  He's getting big enough that he's starting to push either Rachel or me off the bed at night.  For that reason, it's about time he "man up" and head to the kick-ass captain's bed with the equally kick ass Transformers bed sheets we bought for him last year.

Ah but there's a catch.  With Jocelyn now here, she is sleeping in a basinette right next to our bed for feeding purposes.  Side note: Breastfeeding mom's deserve one gigantic round of applause.  They're basically 24 hour restaurants - Jack in the Box for infants if you will.  I don't know if all breastfeeding women do this, but Rachel graciously lets me sleep all night, not waking me up when Jocie (Pronounced JOSS-E if you were wondering) starts crying because I can't feed her anyways.  I think if I were breastfeeding, I'd make as much noise as possible just because I was so annoyed that I had to be up at 3 am.  It's probably good for everyone that I can't breastfeed, for more reasons than I can list here.  Anyways, with Jocie sleeping in our room, the timing is not really great to move Jonah back into his own room.  I don't expect Jonah at his age to understand why Jocie needs to sleep in our room, but he has to GTFO. 

So as I see it, we have four options:

• Continue to let Jonah sleep in our room until Jocelyn is done breastfeeding, thus allowing us to transition her to her crib in her room.  Estimated date of reclaiming our bed:  July 2012.  Advantages:  Probably the easiest for Jonah to understand.  Disadvantages:   I said July 2012!!!!!  Plus, what if he doesn't accept the idea that just because Jocelyn is moving to her own room, why should he have to?  In that case, we could be co-sleeping until he gets to school and finds out that most kids aren't still sleeping with their parents and is publicly shamed on the playground during recess.
• Buy Jonah a TV for his bedroom, then let him fall asleep in there.  Estimated date of reclaiming our bed:  9pm the day we buy the TV.  Advantages:  If Jonah falls for it, he's out instantly.  Disadvantages:  You mean aside from giving a 4 year old his own television?  What happens on those nights he doesn't fall asleep and we have to go in there and turn the TV off?  He's going to pitch a fit and try to come into our bed, resulting in hours long battles.  Also, he's only entertained by the same Disney movies for so long, which means buying an additional box and paying DirecTV to install it unless we want to seriously ramp up our movie rental budget.  Either way it costs us money.
• Let him fall asleep in our bed, then start carrying him to his room.  Estimated date of reclaiming our bed:  As early as tonight.  Advantages:  IF he stays asleep, conceivably I could bring him back into our bed when I wake up in the morning and he'd never be the wiser.  Disadvantages:  If he wakes up, we have to start doing the musical rooms thing.  When he wakes up in the morning, is he terrified that he woke up somewhere other than where he fell asleep?  That usually doesn't happen until you're in college, and it's usually just as terrifying then.  Or so I'm told.
• Just pull the "BECAUSE I'M PARENT AND I SAID SO" card and 86 the kid.  Estimated date of reclaiming our bed:  Whenever I'm ready to endure the pain in my firstborn son's eyes.  Advantages:  Aside from the immediacy of getting him out, I don't really see any.  Disadvantages:  Longer evenings for us as we either listen to him cry himself to sleep or have to continually get out of bed to place him back in his room.  Jonah is also upset and feels abandoned. 

Based on this, I think we go with option 3 for now, then when he's a little older, entertain option 2.  Also, eventually might be able to get to the point of letting him watch until a certain time in our room, then regardless of if he's asleep or not, sending him to his own bed.  That's the idea at least.

Do any other parents face these problems?  What age did your kids start sleeping in their own rooms?  How long did the transition take? Any suggestions?