Heeeeeres Jessie!

So Roz now has her own room. Okay, I say *now* but she’s had it for about a month I think? ….

Anyway, it was time. There were only so many times I could be kicked, shoved and prodded during the night and wake up tired and bleury eyed and in a bad bad mood in the morning.

I’m a cheery morning person and this was really putting me in a zone I did not like. Plus, she needed her own space for all the toys that were spilling over in the living room. We wanted to reclaim just a tiny bit of child-free adult space for ourselves that wasn’t the kitchen. It just made sense eventually to turf Kris out of the spare bedroom and dump all that crap  redesign it into Roz’s own little haven of toydom and wonder.

We got her a bunk bed…well, is it really a bunk bed if it doesn’t have a bottom bunk? Hmmm….There’s a top bunk and beneath it is a big ol’ space where we put her box of soft toys, a shelf for other small toys and across the bed are her table and chair and other toy storage thingamabobs. She got to pick her own bedding and I gave her a tiny little pillow that my aunt gave me years ago, and she uses that as a pillow for her stuffed rabbit, Annyong.

She’s really particular about where Annyong and Monchichi lie on her bed every morning

Everything was going fine the first week. She loved it! Every friend that came over was told to stand outside the closed door, which she would then fling open with a flourish and grand “ta-da” before being shown around. She cleaned it every evening and played her own music while she worked , singing away. Ahhhh.

And best of all? She would get into bed and one of us would read her a bedtime story till she fell asleep. And she… Slept.Through.The.Night. It was brilliant. I would spread eagle myself across my bed and just luxuriate in all that space! You don’t realise how bed space is a valuable commodity till you’ve had to share with a restless child.

She got to choose the canopy that goes over her bed and allows her some “privacy”

Week two and she was waking up at night saying it was too dark, so we got her a night light. It’s a lovely yellow moon with really soft reassuring light. She would wake at night and come into our room and Kris would get up, walk her back and stay with her till she fell asleep again. That worked well because even though I woke up to the voices, I didn’t actually have to do anything. Thanks Kris.

Well, then it all went Pete Tong as they say over in England. She started to wake up every single night and come into our room. Sometimes she would be happy to lie down next to Kris and sometimes she just really really really wanted to lie down next to me. And it was as awful as it was – the tossing and bashing with thrown about limbs. Truly, I’m wake up feeling like a beaten up tossed salad. And the coming in got earlier and earlier till she might as well have been back in my bed.

So last week I sat her down and asked what had changed? Didn’t she like her room anymore?

She did.

Didn’t she like the night light?

It was lovely.

Was it too dark?

Nope, it was fine.

Was she having nightmares?

No.

Then what (the fuck!) was wrong?

She kind of whispered something about Jessie…

Eh? Says me.

“Jessie. Jessie creeps me out.”

Me, puzzled, “who’s Jessie?”

“My doll! At the end of my bed. I don’t like it when I wake up and she’s just staring at me at night. Come and look mama.”

This is the arrangement at the end of her bed.

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…Shudder.