The great 2010 kick-off campout.

I used to have a playpen but I lent it to the kids for Xander a few months ago because they had lent theirs to someone else. They never got theirs back, so I never got mine back.

When we were shopping in Edmonton last month we found this Peapod by Kidco at the e-Children store. It immediately became one of those gotta have items that was surely going to change our lives. We needed to get something for Xander to sleep in at our house (I recently watched him fall off my bed and land on his head - an image that will haunt me for a long time) This gizmo was unusual. It was cool - camouflage. And it folds small and tucks under the bed.

And New Year's eve we had a sleep over to try it out.

As usual, I rocked him to sleep while he held a bottle in one hand and his soother in the other, switching which one he sucked on back and forth every few seconds until finally he pushes the bottle away and falls asleep with the soother.

I carefully dropped to my knees to place the sleeping child in his peapod, briefly wondering how utterly fantastic this contraption really was.

Xander woke up crying about 1am. I had just nicely fallen asleep but PaPa was still up watching a hockey game. PaPa settled him and went to bed shortly thereafter. About 4am the wee child began moving in his bed. Now, someone used to having a baby sleep in their room may not even have stirred at this. However, each movement of an arm or leg against that nylon tent fabric sounded like major thrashing about to my ears. And though I'm sure he hadn't even opened his eyes, I was convinced he needed a bottle and got up to get him one.

Had I ignored him, it is quite likely he would have slept right on through the night. But any baby given a nice warm bottle at 4 am is going to attempt to drink it. And thus the child, though not really ever waking up, just sort of wriggled around and whined in his sleep for about an hour. He wasn't awake enough to keep either the bottle or a soother in his mouth and kept losing them in the dark - creating the need for Granny to throw back the blankets and get down on her haunches to thrash about in the dark tent for something for the kid to suck on.

"This is the most retarded contraption I have ever seen," I recall saying out loud to myself at one point.

Eventually about 5am, after working myself into a hot flash, I just threw my pillow on the floor and slept in front of the open tent flap where one arm could remain flopped over the kid's face to keep the soother intact. And we slept til 8:15.