today wasn't such a great day. the sun was shining, and the suggestion was that it may be the last time such a thing happens until spring, so we went to the farm and to the park. it should have been a good day, but it wasn't. something isn't aligning in our house these days. something is just slightly off. cohen is having more and more bad days. i had no idea it was so difficult to parent a two year old. maybe i shouldn't lump him generically into a clump, since so many people before this have said "i don't know why they call two terrible?" screw them. i spend literally hours of everyday battling with the small human. it is has gotten ridiculous, and the rainy season isn't even here yet. at this rate if i make it through to april it will be a miracle.
still, he is doing all kinds of cute things, like singing to songs on itunes, breakdancing at the hip noodle restaurant, and saying "i love you galena, nice kitty" as he gently strokes her head. there is definitely a love hate thing going on over here. the bottom line is that as long as he can do whatever, wherever he wants then he is mr smiley go lucky, but the minute i put the breaks on running recklessly around the vats of apples at the farmers market while dozens of people attempt to buy produce, and he becomes mr hitty grouchy pants. my mom has always said that the cornerstone of good parenting is always being the boss, children don't really want to be the boss, they want someone else to be in control so that they feel secure. i need to work on that. i try, but i almost always buckle under strong resistance. i am thickening my skin as we speak.
the sleep thing with ada came to a head tonight as well. we co-sleep and i think it works great for us, but as we did with cohen, the idea was to transition her to the crib around 6 months, give or take. i would have been happy to keep the co-sleeping up a little longer, but in the last 10 days ada has been waking ten or more times during the night. sometimes just to kick a little, pinch my face and then teeter back to sleep, but every time i wake up and have to lull myself back. the result has been a very impatient and sleep deprived mommy. i have felt half dead most days and quite ill prepared to deal with mr hitty grouchy pants, so tonight i took a stand. i tried to rock her for a bit, but she is quite possibly the fidgetiest baby in the entire universe. i guarantee that she is going to be one of those kids that can't sit still. so then i laid her down in the crib and gently stroked her hair for five minutes, but still no sleepy sleep. it was past her bedtime, she was ready, her eyes were drooping off the edge of the crib, she needed sleep. that sounded like i was justifying, didn't it? i guess i am a little. of course you know what comes next. i let her cry. it took her all of 3 minutes to put herself to sleep and now that is where she is. i know when she wakes at midnight i will probably bring her into bed with me, but until then i can't wait to crawl in to bed and have more than 4 inches at the edge in which to sprawl out. i hope one day soon we all have our own place to sleep that works, and that bedtime isn't a two hour affair.
and yes, i know, i should totally change the name of this blog to "miserable and whiney".
2 comments:
I feel your pain. Operating on broken sleep against a 2 year old is just NOT FAIR BALL. I too feel as though things have become 10x worse in the past few weeks. "Don't hit me," I say. "But mommy I already did!" he says with a smirk. Lawd.
My baby USED to put himself to sleep but now won't do it because he won't stop rolling over. Oh and he's getting teeth this week.
You can sign me: miserable and whiny 2.
I've been lurking around, reading your blog for the last week or so after stumbling on it, and loving your writing & photography...
I really shouldn't complain - I only have one almost-six-month old to deal with, but cripes, this lack of sleep is getting to me too. He used to sleep well until about 4 months - a couple of 5/6 hour stretches - but he's been up all night long since then. We've tried a whole lot of everything and nothing all at the same time. We're too tired to coordinate a logical approach! He's a peach during the day, so I don't know what is up with this nighttime baby Jekyll thing. :-)
Feeling your pain. Miserable & Whiny 3?
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