In preparation for the living arrangements in Australia and beyond we decided to move convert Priya’s crib to a toddler bed days before we left for our trip. When we arrived in Queens, there were two queen size mattresses on the floor in a room for us to sleep in. This would be Priya’s first time sleeping in a bed without rails. We decided to put the two children in opposite corners of one bed and we would take the other. Shortly after turning out the lights we heard the kids messing around with each other. I, Timothy, flashed a cell phone light to see what was going on and told them to get back in their spots. Then we heard them wrestling and giggling again. As you can imagine, there were several iterations of this with repeated warnings. Every time I would flip on my cellphone backscreen light, Priya would screem and dive head first back into her pillow to as if she thought I wouldn’t see her in the act if she got back to her pillow fast enough. Since I couldn’t just put her in a crib, I figured I’ll have to intervene. I told Priya that if I caught her messing with Elijah again, she would lose her elephant blanket that she sleeps with. Then for good measure, I crawled over next to her and wrapped her up in a bear hug so we could finally get some sleep. Well I must’ve gotten some sleep because I woke up to hearing her playing with Elijah again. This time I was laying on her pillow. I figured now I’ve caught her in the act! I quickly flipped on my cell phone backlight and said “I caught you!” But as quickly as I could get the words out of my mouth, I suddenly see a head appear out of the darkness from the 1 foot range of the backlight and it was flying straight at me! Priya dove head first into her pillow, unfortunately her pillow was being occupied at the moment by Daddy’s eye socket. All I could think is “this is going to hurt”. Crack!!! And screaming breaks out in the room from Priya. Or maybe it was me sounding like Priya. Jonali quickly turned on the light and I was in a world of hurt but I told her to check Priya. Somehow Priya’s little baby head was no worse for the wear while I was left looking like Rocky. I laughed and thought, this is going to be interesting to explain when I speak at the Church in the morning!
Needless to say, Priya is so compassionate that the first night sleeping in her new bed in Australia, which also happened to be her first night sleeping in an adult bed, she decided to give herself a matching tattoo so I wouldn’t feel alone! So far she’s only does a face plant out of her bed every couple nights or so. Usually you hear “thud” and then a delay as you wait for the ripping scream that follows! Learning the hard way, one bump at a time.
