Bedtime Outburst

Truman is generally our best behaved kid when it comes to bedtime. Dinner ends, and he might play for a bit, but he is usually asking to "do all the things". That means that he wants to do everything to get ready for bed (brush teeth, read books, maybe the occasional video game), and he is generally willing to go to bed shortly afterward.

Tonight, James was taking Amelia to a basketball game, so it was just me and the boys. Shortly after dinner, Truman was already asking to "do all the things", so James offered to put him in bed before he left. He put him in bed, left, and I stayed with Jameson and Darwin downstairs.

About 30 minutes later, as I am preparing to take Jameson upstairs to bed, Truman pokes his face through the 2nd floor stair rails and yells, "bring me downstairs!". I am surprised to see that he's still awake, but I try to reassure him that I am on my way upstairs to bring Jameson to bed. He breaks down, falls into a fetal position, and starts crying. I pick him up, and I tell him that if he lays down, I will get him a drink.

As Jameson brushes his teeth, and I return with a drink for Truman, which seems to satisfy him for the moment. For a few brief minutes, everyone is at peace as we lay down to read a couple of books. Then, I declare it's bedtime.

Everyone is quiet as I lay down with Jameson for a few minutes. Truman begins grumbling that he doesn't want to go to sleep, but I am so tired I am fading in and out of sleep. A few minutes later, I wake up to more Truman grumbling, except he is escalating it now to yelling and threats, fairly out of character for him.

I ignore him at first, just listening to what he's saying. I wanted to be mad because it's late, and I still have to get Darwin to sleep. Then I really started listening to what he was saying, and I wanted to laugh.

In his angry stream of demands and threats, he orders that I "say something to [him], don't say something to [him]". I think that's his way of telling me not to talk to him. He demands the same about 20 times. When I don't respond, he begins to bang on the sides of the crib. (Yes, he's still in a crib due to our temporary living arrangements). I can tell that he likes the loudness of his foot banging on the wood panels. He bangs harder. Then he begins to throw out his threats, "I'm gonna break this bed!", and I can't help but giggle to myself.

"I'm gonna break this bed and then we don't have a bed!" I am still laughing on the inside, but I tell him to cut it out, and that it's time to go to sleep. He grumbles more threats under his breath, and I tell him I am going downstairs to get Darwin.

When I return with Darwin, Truman is still awake and continuing with his complaints and threats. I turn on the bedtime music, and this finally seems to settle him down. He is asleep before I can get Darwin to sleep, and I laugh as I remembered his angry little threats and how far we've come from the calm, quiet, agreeable Truman of days long passed.

Sweet Dreams Jameson

Every night is a different adventure to get Jameson to sleep. Just in this last week, I introduced him to Eva Cassidy. I know, not really manly, but it's effective at bedtime. Songbird seems to do the trick every time.

For those of you that don't know Eva Cassidy, have a listen. She has a great voice, and her story is quite interesting.

Laundry Is Done . . . kinda

It's been a while since my last post, but if you notice the time this is when I have "time" to write.  Everyone is in bed, and the piles of clean, unfolded laundry were taunting me.  They're now folded, and I promised myself I wouldn't post unless I got the laundry folded first.  I'm not really done though because there's about 3 "dirty" piles still waiting for me to get to them.  Oh well, they will wait another day.

Don't worry this post is NOT about laundry, but it was on my mind when I started writing.

This post is about Jameson.  I have been meaning to write for a couple of weeks now about his newly found interest in chapter books.  I'm not crazy in that way, so I would never offer a chapter book to a 2 year old because I would not expect him to be interested.

About a month ago, I was at my parents' house, and I decided to bring home more of the stuff that still clutters my old room at their house.  Oddly, I have so many things still there that it looks like I still live there.  Anyway, that day I decided I would bring home more of the children's books that I accumulated while taking a children's literature course back when some bad circuitry in my brain had me thinking I would go into teaching (While doing my student teaching semester, I decided it wasn't for me).  

I brought home a small Roald Dahl collection that includes George's Marvelous Medicine, Matilda, The Twits, The BFG, and Esio Trot.  I set them on the desk upstairs, and didn't think much of them until I later saw that Jameson had moved them into his room.  Again, I just thought he would look at them and get bored once he realized they didn't have many pictures.

He didn't.  He asked me to read George's Marvelous Medicine, and we finished it a few days later.  We have since moved on to Matilda.  When I started reading George's Marvelous Medicine, I thought for sure he'd be bored in 5 minutes.  He wasn't.  In fact, he was anxious to find out what was going to happen.  I can't lie -  I was interested too.  It's a nice change reading a chapter book to him since picture books and such can get boring when you're reading them for the tenth time.  On the other hand, some never get old because they're fun to read.

I'm interested to see if he asks me for more once we finish the Roald Dahl set, and I'm wondering where this will lead.  I'm not really a fiction aficionado, but I love non-fiction.  Lately, I've been on a business and financial topics kick.  You don't suppose he'd want to read Family Business Succession with me?  Okay, maybe I'll wait until he's four.

I'm Hiding

James just left for New York, and he left me with 2 fussy babies.  They are all normally asleep at this time in the morning, but today they decided to wake up and cry.  I have been rocking and trying to calm them for 45 minutes or so.  I just gave up, and I came out here to get away from the crying.

Bedtime is the one time of the day that Truman really struggles unless he's sleeping with me.  He's in his swing, and calling for me.  It's hard not to pick him up, but it's also tiresome to always give in and let him have his way.  I'm giving him some time to try to fall asleep on his own, but in 10 more minutes I'll probably just give up.  Should I feel sorry for James when he comes home telling me how tired his is and that he needs a nap?  This is the sob story he told me after his last "business" trip.  You can imagine that I didn't really have much sympathy for how tired he was after he got to sleep in a quiet hotel room.

I hope you have fun out there, but come home well-rested.

Getting the Babies to Sleep . . . Sure

I'm not really a napper (unless I'm pregnant), so I don't really take kindly to napping.  James has a habit of staying up way too late wasting time online or working on a new project he probably will not finish when he should be in bed.  He often complains how tired he is, and he usually blames it on poor sleep quality.  I normally blame it on poor bedtime habits.  It's a discussion we have often.

So . . . you can imagine that when I find him napping or suspect he has fallen asleep following one of his late night blogging sessions, I am usually a little aggravated.  Well, on this particular afternoon, he had gone upstairs to "get the babies to sleep", and he was gone for quite a while.  After about 45 minutes, I began to suspect he had fallen asleep, so I was going to wake him up to help me with cleaning.  

Here is what I saw as I opened the door to the babies' room.

I was ready to be mad, but I could not stop laughing.

Warning: Bad Parenting Skills Ahead

In 15 years, Jameson will probably look back and blame us for the bad sleeping and eating habits we have given him (although we did our best initially to avoid them). Lately, it's all too much that we choose our battles, and junk food and bedtime are two we often lose. Only time will tell how much damage we have done. We do our best to be the best parents we know how to be, but lack of sleep, newborn twins, and a persistent toddler REALLY make that difficult.

Here is some evidence:

There is one thing I find really hypocritical about most parents (including us). We all want the best for our children, and we try to shelter them from making the same bad choices we make. Here is JJ eating an ice cream sandwich (one of my favorite guilty pleasures). Poor kid has his mom and dad's nasty sweet tooth. Yes, we could have made a healthier food choice, but is it really fair to treat yourself then tell your kid he can't have it? I am sure I will hear about this one from James.

Here's more evidence of what many would consider a bad habit, but it's one of my favorite nighttime activities. JJ likes to curl up in bed with me and watch Justice League Unlimited, Batman, and/or Superfriends. Here he is tonight waiting on me to get him some milk and come watch his shows with him. Maybe once our schedules normalize here, he'll get to bed at a decent hour again. If and when that happens, I will miss our little ritual. I am sure his dad will be happy to see it go.