I am talking about bedtime, although I suppose the adage could apply to childhood in general. I have found an odd universal truth to all children: they hate sleeping. If you mention bedtime to a three year old and you may as well be mentioning the zombie apocalypse. "Noooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't want to go to (yawn) bed!!!!! I am NOT (yawn) tired!!!!!!!" Of course, little kids are never tired, which works out great because once you become a parent you are never not tired. The stay at home parent cannot leave "the office" at five P.M. unless they want to risk being charged with child neglect, so bedtime marks the end of the day. Genius, right? I bet you would never have connected bedtime to the end of a day without me. You will have to excuse my lack of creativity today, I am sleep deprived. Yes, I do use sleep deprivation as an excuse for everything. "Sorry I am late, the baby was up every hour last night". "I would love to commit to that but Aiden hasn't been sleeping well, so we will have to see how it goes". "I know I shouldn't eat this chocolate chip cookie for lunch, but I didn't get a lot of sleep last night." Incidentally, this is also the reason that I don't work out. Not sleeping is my workout. I have also read somewhere (I can't remember where) that a side affect of sleep deprivation is short term memory loss.
What was I talking about, again? Oh, yes, bedtime. The end of the work day and the beginning of trying to clean your house so that it will look clean while you are in bed and then be torn apart again in the morning. I am very fortunate that I have a husband who takes it upon himself the restore some order to the house while I am wrestling alligators, I mean getting my children to go to sleep. Ahhh, bedtime. It is the point in the day where my patience has run out and I am ready for some peace and quiet, an adult TV show, or at least a fourth cup of coffee. Of course, my children have no idea as to the beauty of bedtime. My three year old believes that bedtime is a form of torture created by cruel parents ("But I thought you loved me"). My four month old actually goes to bed pretty willingly and has a great two hour night's sleep, by which point I have finally threatened, tricked, bribed, and begged Aiden to sleep. By the time bed time roles around I have pretty much lost all patience and energy, and Aiden knows it. I may have mentioned this fact previously, but remember sleep deprivation causes short term memory loss, unless of course you are a three year old, in which case it causes extreme hyperactivity. Getting Aiden to stay in bed is like pushing down on of those damn inflatable punching bags with the weights in the bottom. He pops right back out.
Some of you may be wondering, why don't I establish a bedtime routine. Thanks, Dr. Ferber, but I thought of that three years ago. Bedtime starts out innocently enough.
Me: "It is time to go upstairs for bath."
Aiden: "I don't want to take a bath."
Me: "We have cool bath finger paints. Hurry up or Elliott will use them all."
I then proceed to fill Elliott's infant tub and the big tub, get both boys in, lather, rinse, repeat, drain. Next step: Get the boys dried off and into pajamas.
Aiden: "I don't want to get out of the bath tub!"
Elliott: "Wahhhh AHHHHH!!!!"
Aiden: "Elliott, you CANNNOT cry!"
I dread bath time. I could write an entire post on how much I detest bath time. I could, but I won't.
After bath time comes saying prayers and reading books. Aiden cannot listen to books unless he is also eating a snack. Apparently his ears only work if his mouth is moving. I get Aiden his snack and water and nurse the baby while reading books. After books are completed I lay Elliott down in his crib with his music and pacifier and instruct Aiden to go potty and brush his teeth. Then I instruct Aiden to go potty and brush his teeth again. I threaten Aiden with no song if he does not go potty and brush his teeth THIS INSTANT. I run into Elliott's room to reinsert his pacifier and restart his music, then reenter the hallway and yell, "BE QUIET, YOUR BROTHER IS GOING TO SLEEP, AND BRUSH YOUR TEETH." Finally, I get Aiden into his bed, put his CD player on repeat so that he doesn't wake up at 2:00 A.M. and yell, "Mom, turn my music back on", turn on the closet light, check for mosters, turn on the dresser light, plug in the night light, hunt down bear and snuggle blanket which are usually in a convenient place like downstairs on top of the dryer, make up a story, answer fifty questions about what we are going to do tomorrow, and say goodnight. Are you tired yet? I sure as hell am. Aiden is not. He is just getting started. By this point it is eight o'clock and I have resorted to answering, "So what else are we going to do tomorrow?" with, "Nothing if you don't go to sleep." This is followed by an hour or so of Aiden getting out of bed and running down the hallway laughing manically and me putting him back in bed. Finally I come to the conclusion that I can either continue this game or lay in Aiden's bed and feign sleep while getting headbutted and kicked. This is how bad habits start, people. Of course, once a seemingly innocent habit like laying with your kid until he falls asleep begins it is almost impossible to break, which is why I was NEVER GOING TO BE THE PARENT THAT STAYS WITH MY KID UNTIL HE FALLS ASLEEP. I am pretty sure I actually said that when I was much less sleep deprived.
Sadly, neither of my kids sleep though the night. Elliott still wakes up every 2-3 hours and Aiden wakes up sometime between 2:00 and 4:00 A.M. to tell me something too important to wait until a more reasonable hour ("Hey, Mom, remember that show we watched with the bird? The bird's name was Papaya") and ask me what we are going to do that day. If it sounds like I am complaining that is only because I am. It turns out sleep deprivation also causes irritability. I both look forward to and dread bed time in equal measures. I think I have made my point. Now if you will excuse me I am going to eat lunch before my cookie gets cold.
