Stars on His Ceiling

TheLittleGuy has been having a really rough month. He’s getting 8 teeth all at once. His four first-year molars and his four eyeteeth are all in various stages of eruption. Needless to say, there have been some miserable nights here Chez Uncorked. The fun was accentuated by a viral infection that persisted for about a week or more. This weekend has seen a fresh onslaught of drool and massive runny nose, which could be just teething-related or another virus. Poor fella.

We give him painkillers, but we’re trying not to go overboard with them. Sometimes other kinds of distraction will help (chew toys, ice water, reading books) and we try them all.

There’s a toy that if you browse toy catalogs at all you’ve probably come across. It’s a turtle (or ladybug) that projects a starfield onto the ceiling. I think it’s made by the same people who make the Lavender Lab (which we have). I’ve had the turtle on TLG’s wishlist for months now. The other day TheGuy and I were in the baby store and all of a sudden I said, “We should get that turtle! Stars on the ceiling would be a great distraction when he’s fussed in the middle of the night.” As so often happens in this particularly well-laid out baby store, after I’d had the thought, and spoken the words, I turned around and literally no more than 6 feet away, there was an endcap with the turtle!

So we got it and tried it out. We really can’t tell whether TLG likes the starfield projection or is alarmed by it. He’s definitely interested in it. He points and exclaims at the turtle (on top of a dresser) when it’s not on and seems to want us to turn it on. He points at the ceiling when he can see the projected stars on the ceiling. If we carry him past the dresser with the turtle he wants to push the buttons and make the stars show up. We’re leaning towards interpreting this as him liking it. However, it doesn’t have the calming/mesmerizing effect I’d hoped for. I’ll lay with him and say: “LittleGuy look at the stars! They are so pretty!” But he’s more agitated (positively or negatively) than relaxed. Still, it’s only been a couple of days and I really like it, so we’re going to keep using it as part of our night-time parenting arsenal.

I was telling TheGuy over dinner how much I liked it and said we might have to have two little toy star-projecting turtles eventually. He said: “You know they make real ones, right?” I said “THEY DO?” Yeah, apparently, one can buy devices (here’s one example) that project actual starfields and constellations onto the ceiling and rotate slowly to mimic an actual night sky. OMG I really want one of those now. TheGuy is looking into it for me. Hee.

Tonight, TLG was terribly stuffy and drooly and has spent a lot of this long weekend poking at his teeth, but he was also very tired. He’s started making the sign for sleep when he’s tired – we are so impressed at the self-awareness and his willingness to go to sleep. TheGuy read him some stories and then I nursed him to sleep. I scooped him up to carry him to his crib, and as I laid him down his eyes fluttered open briefly and he caught a glimpse of the stars on the ceiling. He sleepily flung his arm into the air, halfway between my arms and the mattress, and pointed at them as if to say: “Stars, Mama! There are stars!” and I held my breath thinking he was going to wake himself up, but then his eyes closed again and he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Stars! I can’t wait to find a spot away from light pollution and show him the real thing some evening when the days are shorter this winter.