As I type this, Pearl is asleep in her own room. For the second night in a row. From the reading I have done about adoption and attachment, I fully expected that Pearl would be camping out in our bedroom for the foreseeable future. Even our adoption agency social worker recommended that Pearl sleep in our room for the first few months. Pearl, though, seemed to have other ideas.
She is certainly not shy when it comes to communicating her desires. Despite the language barrier, or perhaps because of it, Pearl makes her wishes abundantly clear to me. "No" is expressed by pointing a chubby index finger at me, frowning, and saying "no!" or else by waving her left hand in front of her face, as if to say, "I'll pass".
When she wants something, Pearl taps me repeatedly and yells "Mama!" She then points that same chubby index finger at the desired object and nods or shakes her head as I try to guess what she wants. The pointing and yelling become more or less forceful as my guesses become "colder" or "warmer".
Suffice to say, Pearl is not speaking much English. I suspect that she lambastes me in Mandarin from time to time to articulate her disappointment in my lackluster powers of deduction, but otherwise, she is perfectly content to use wild gesticulation as our preferred means of communication.
I've taken to referring to her as "Tiny Chairman Mao". Bossy doesn't even begin to describe my little angel.
For a few nights, Pearl seemed to appreciate that Angry Driver or I sat next to her while she fell asleep and that we were nearby if she awakened during the night. About a week ago, though, she started having trouble falling and staying asleep. One night, it took her two hours to fall asleep. By 10 PM, I was completely exasperated. Naps became miserable experiences with prolonged crying, angry stares in my direction, and repeated requests for drinks of water (point at Mama, point at glass of water, point at herself, and repeat until Dumb Mama figured it out). Four days ago, I had the bright idea to tuck her into the toddler bed and immediately leave the room.
I'm lying. This was not my bright idea. This was actually my response to being completely frustrated with a lack of nocturnal sleep and daytime napping. Fortunately, my frustrated reaction was exactly what Pearl seemed to want and need.
When I closed the bedroom door behind me, I quickly saw on the video baby monitor that Pearl was able to settle herself down and fall asleep within minutes. Miracle of Miracles!
Yesterday, Angry Driver suggested that we push our luck and move the toddler bed into Pearl's bedroom just in time for bedtime. Pearl's initial reaction was suspicion and incredulity; she tried leave her room and go downstairs a few times. However, after rocking with me in the rocking chair for about 45 seconds, The Chairman pointed to her little bed.
With some trepidation, I laid her in the bed, arranged the blankets, and turned on her timed bedtime music. My next move was to sit on the floor next to her.
Nope. That was not happening.
Chairman Mao pointed at me and then pointed twice at the door.
Message received!
I exited and quickly moved to my command center in the living room, where I could surreptitiously monitor my Pearl on Baby Spy Cam. After rolling around in bed for about five minutes, she boarded the last bus to Dreamland.
Pearl rolled out of bed one time last night, but I heard the "thunk" and rushed to save her. When I threw open her bedroom door, Pearl was sprawled on the floor like a snow angel, a stunned expression on her face. I scooped her up, smothered her in kisses, and deposited her back into bed. Guess what happened next.
She slept until 6:45 AM. When she woke up, she patiently waited in bed for Angry Driver to retrieve her. She then pointed at her diaper so that he would know in no uncertain terms that the Chairman was requesting a diaper change.
This evening, the bedtime ritual went even more smoothly. After a bath, I read Pearl a book, sang two rounds of "Rock-A-Bye-Baby", and tucked her into bed in response to the pointed finger. She fell asleep in five minutes flat, and as of this typing, she has neither awakened nor rolled out of bed.
Is this success? Perhaps. Two nights of independent sleep is hardly a trend, but I think it bodes well for my prospects of a kid-free bedroom. Unfortunately, I am (surprise!) a tad neurotic, so I can't help but wonder if I am making some kind of huge parenting mistake in moving my adopted child of three weeks into her own room.
What if this is some kind of attachment failure, and here I am celebrating??
What if Pearl is some kind of evil genius and she is testing me to see if I "really love her" enough to ignore her attempts at nocturnal independence and keep her close?
Naturally, I turned to the BTDT (been there, done that) experts on the China Adopt Talk forum for advice. The overwhelming consensus is that I should not look a gift horse in the mouth. Pearl is sleeping, her parents are sleeping, everyone is happy....why worry?
But here's the thing: I'm not sleeping.
I think I mentioned previously that I am selfish. I like my sleep. I like quiet. I enjoy solitude and freedom from interruptions. Yes, yes. That is all still true. This leopard has not changed her spots. However, I have to confess that I actually miss waking up in the middle of the night to see my sleeping Pearl curled up in her tiny little cherry-wood sleigh bed, two fingers tucked into her mouth. I even miss hearing "Mama!" and responding to the vehement pointed finger demands for a drink of water from the cup on the bedside table.
Maybe I'm cultivating some kind of weird new maternal softness. Perhaps it's Stockholm syndrome. After all, I am being held captive by a tiny Asian toddler dictator. Whatever it is, I'm going to accept that - at least for the time being - Pearl wants to sleep in her own room.
Maybe I can convince one of the cats to sleep with me.
