Have you ever stayed
in a hotel room with your entire family, including the pets? Could
you imagine doing so for over six weeks? Welcome to my life!
We have survived
living in one large hotel room together – my husband, my baby,
three cats, a dog, four fish, and myself – for two weeks thus far.
In exactly one month, we'll be moving into our new home. We're so
excited! It's a huge, beautiful house with plenty of space for all of
us and then some. I dream of having all that space. But while we
wait, we're in extended stay hotel living which very much reminds me
of college dorm room life.
One of the first
things we did upon arrival was create a safe space for our quick
crawler to move around. We blocked off half of the room with creative
furniture rearrangement to separate the dog and dog's bowls from the
baby's prying hands. The number of times I've had to wipe up water,
refill the water bowl, and change the baby's wet outfit grew too many
times for me to stand. She didn't take much notice of the dog food,
but inevitably, some would have gotten in her mouth if the
opportunity arose. It was much easier for us all to keep her away.
In the other
partition, using a wall and three cat carriers, we blocked off the
litter box. However, our little cruiser is turning into a climber and
pusher. She has almost demonstrated the ability to push those
barriers out of her way. It won't be much longer now. I don't even
want to think about what she'll do when she finally reaches the cat
litter box when my back is turned. She has already attempted to scale
the air conditioner radiator when I wasn't looking. She landed on her
back with a great thud, thankfully more startled than hurt.
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| But I want to get to the cat! I must climb! |
When we made the
hotel reservation by phone, the agent made a note in our file to
include a crib. The problem was, there were no cribs at this
particular location. He never bothered to check! Thinking we wouldn't
need it, our crib was packed in storage until our move into our new
home. When we realized the mistake, we were stuck. Although we were
trying to wean our seven-month-old from co-sleeping, we now had no
choice. She was to become our sleeping companion once again.
And it was
miserable. Our squirmer kicked and rolled, frequently waking me and
occasionally my husband. For the first time in all our months of
cosleeping (pretty much her whole life), she rolled off the bed,
waking me from sleep with such dread upon hearing her screams from
the floor. Thankfully, she was unharmed. I took extra care to protect
our sleeping space from then on, leading to more physical separation
from my husband. After a week and a half of this, it was clear that
something needed to change.
So we went to Babies
R Us and bought a crib, a portable inexpensive one with cute star
patterned sheets. We probably should have done so from the start. She
now has her own safe sleeping space at the foot of our bed.
Unfortunately, with the whole family in one room, we no longer have
the ability to kick the cats out while we sleep. A cat jumped into
her crib last night and woke her, therefore waking me. I've also
experienced a cat sleeping on my head or meowing for the love of it
at 4 AM. Hotel living is not great for sleeping.
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| Surrounded by cats in the big bed. |
Not to be wasteful,
we decided to use one crib in the nursery on the third floor of our
new home and one crib on the ground floor. Our previous home was only
one story with any part of the house easily accessible while carrying
a sleeping baby. But carrying a sleeping baby from the ground floor
to the third floor sounds like a poor idea to me, especially when
navigating a set of baby gates at each stairwell. Our new crib is
useful when we're cramped and will be useful when we're spread out!
A benefit of hotel
living: easy baby watching. There's only so many places she can go,
and all of them are within view when I'm sitting on the room's couch!
As a work-at-home mom, I've claimed the couch as my office and spent
much of the day here with my laptop and my phone. The baby can roam
in front of me and to the side of me, she can nurse on me, or she can
nap in the crib. Wherever she is, I can see her. This doesn't mean I
get a ton of work done these days as an employee, but I'm trying. It
has been a greater struggle than I expected, but that's a story for
another day!
