If you ever catch me romanticizing this whole parenting thing, please remind me about tonight—or, really, any night from the past few (or 20) months. It's 10:45, and Greg and I have been trying for three and a half hours to get Nora to sleep. I finally gave up and left her to cry after she started pointing at the floor next to her crib (where there's a camping pad, which I've been sleeping on for at least part of the night for the past several weeks) and said, "Lie down. Mommy, lie down."
I guess we know who's calling the shots around here.
She's now in her crib, crying out with just about every request she can think of—ranging from, "Downstairs!" to "Cheerios!" to "All fall down!" (as in "Ring Around the Rosie").
My friend Sujata likes to point out that all this awake time gives Nora more time to learn, and that argument seems to have some merit. Last week as I was eating my breakfast, I heard a sweet little voice saying, "One, two, three …" all the way up to eight. I had absolutely no idea she had a concept of numbers, but there she was, at 7 in the morning, counting bottles of wine. That's my girl.
A couple of days later, as I was changing her diaper, she said, "Friday, Saturday, Sunday!" Again, the focus on the weekend makes me sure she's mine.
Another post will be dedicated to how the older of our children is going about reminding us that parenting is not for the meek, but I have a ThermaRest (and a stubborn little girl) calling my name.
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5 comments:
Ugh, D, I'm sorry! Sleep issues are absolutely the worst. Benjamin, at freaking 5.5 years old, has decided that he's going to regress and start crying, flipping out, begging me to lay with him and get up multiple times at night with that same request. I'm sorry that Nora is in the same "bedtime is the enemy" camp. :(
See?! She's brilliant! What did I tell you? This, of course, comes at the expense of your own mental functioning as, after months of sleep deprivation, you can no longer count to 8.
I hope it gets better--I know that for our boy, who was an awful sleeper, all that worked was the heart-wrenching walk-away-and-use-earplugs method (in a one-bedroom loft, i might add), but of course the last thing you need is advice that you've already tried and hasn't worked. :)
I'm so sorry. Obviously, you know we went through 2 years of 3-4 hour bedtimes and night time screaming, until S magically started going to bed in Dec. Then she started crawling into bed with us at 3 am, which I could live with. Then last week, M figured out what was going on and started following her downstairs. Now I need a thermarest next to my OWN bed. There's no room for me. Obviously, this can't continue, but, as long as no one's screaming, I'm not rushing with the counter strategy.
parenting is all kinds of fun...
I have to admit that I romanticize all over the frickin place. I romanticize constantly about parenthood. And the thing is, I completely believe myself. I am so utterly bewitched by that kid that I am able to forgive even the fact that I have now been sick for an ENTIRE MONTH thanks to 2-year-old germs (never happened to me pre-motherhood).
As for the "lie down Mommy", I can totally see Q making that sort of demand - except that she really has no desire for us to sleep with or near her, so her demands are used for other, more devious purposes. For instance, her stock demand when she doesn't want to go to bed (which is, thankfully, rare) is "pee!!!" This, she quickly determined, was far and away the most effective method of getting us to lift her out of her crib without argument. Since she is potty-training, we never deny a request for the potty. CHECKMATE!
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