A couple of weeks ago it was a day like any other day. That glorious hour called nap time was quickly approaching, so I finished reading The Little Blue Truck for the billionth time while Alex drank his milk, we sang a song, Alex climbed into bed, cuddled up with his beloved blankie, sucked his thumb, and was on his way to sleep just like that. "Dang, he is so stinkin' cute!" I thought to myself. "It is fabulous how he will go to sleep, just like that, without any fight. We must be doing something right as parents! Our kid is awesome!"
And truly our kid is pretty awesome. Especially considering we'd taken the front rail off of his crib a couple months ago, and he transitioned like a champ. We had endured a few minutes of fits on rare occasions, but for the most part it had been smooth sailing!
Oh how naive I was to assume it would last!
The following day Matt tried to put him down for a nap. Alex, for whatever reason, had decided that no how, no way was he going to stay in bed. Matt would shut the door and walk downstairs, 30 seconds later we would hear the door open and there was Alex peaking around the corner, his finger to his lips quietly whispering "Shhhh!" to himself, and then smiling. Stinker! Matt kept returning him to bed, and after numerous failed attempts, sat in the hall holding the door closed to prevent Alex from opening it. You can imagine how well that went over. Once again it was over an hour until Alex FINALLY went to sleep.
I decided that surely the problem was simply that Matt was putting him to bed. Maybe Alex just wanted to continue playing with Daddy; after all, Alex had gone to bed just fine for me. So that night I put him to bed, fully expecting things to go as normal. Boy was I wrong! "WAAAAHHHH!!!! MOOOOOMMMMM!!!!. . . .[thump, thump, thump, door opening]" and there stands my child, grinning from ear to ear. After more failed attempts to keep him in bed, we finally gave up and put the rail back on the crib. . . then endured a good 45 minutes of crying.
This pattern has continued every night for the last two weeks. Thankfully it has slowly gotten a little better, but Alex has also randomly decided that he needs to wake up at 3, 4 or 5am at least once or twice and refuses to go back to sleep. He also no longer wants to go to nursery by himself. Fantastic. . .
Now, don't get me wrong, I love my child! He's still a good boy for the most part. But as I lay there night after night listening to him screaming at 4am, I can't help but think, "Why did we want to have children? What on earth is up with our little boy?! JUST GO TO SLEEP!! Is he afraid of the dark? Does he just think it's funny to get out of bed? He's getting a new molar, is he in pain? Is he just trying to kill off his parents??" Perhaps its a little of everything.
And thus it's been pretty awesome around our house these last couple weeks! Lots of screaming, lots of battles, lots of exhaustion, lots of having absolutely no idea what is wrong. That's the funny thing about being a parent: one minute you feel like you've finally started to figure it out, you've got everything under control, and your child seems happy, healthy, and well adjusted; the next minute everything is chaos and you haven't a clue what to do about it. Unfortunately I'm fairly sure that this cycle is never ending.
In the mean time it's a good thing kids are so darn cute!! There are many, MANY moments that parenthood completely sucks; but thankfully there are also many, MANY moments when kids make you laugh, and it's in those moments that you find the reassurance that having kids is most definitely worth it, that they truly make you a better person, and that the level of love and joy in your life is magnified by having them!
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| "Cheese!" |
So here's to not only having, but enjoying kids!!
