I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that parents aren’t supposed to have favorites when it comes to their kids but after last night, Cara is looking like a freakin’ rockstar.
This favoritsm is, I’ll admit, colored by a lack of sleep.
Oliver’s problem has never been going to sleep. That kid could go to sleep curled up in a milk crate – not that he has…that was just the most uncomfortable place I could think of.
So that initial bedtime thing is fine and always has been.
It’s the staying asleep thing that’s the problem.
Last night – actually this morning – Ollie woke up at like 3am or something. He was banging on his door and I was afraid he was going to wake his sister up. I opened his door and he instantly toddled back to his bed and crawled in. He rubbed his pillow, obviously wanting me to lay next to him, and I curled myself up in his toddler bed. This isn’t something I normally do but I was so tired and if there was a chance he would go back to sleep with minimal effort…well…I wasn’t going to pass that up.
After about ten minutes, his eyes were closed and he had this itty bitty baby snore thing going on.
Getting out of that toddler bed is a multiple step process.
First, you must extract your arm from under the head and neck of the kid. Then, if said child is still asleep, you move your leg out from under the kid’s legs. If you’re all good, it’s time to move to the end of the toddler bed – ever so slowly – because the bed cover makes all kinds of noises and every little creak could wake the man child.
Once you’re off the bed it’s time to get to the door and then out of the door and back in your own bed. This can take up to fifteen minutes – if you’re lucky.
I know the steps but last night, I could only ever get to the part where I made a run for the door. Oliver woke up every time I got to the door. At some point, he actually did go back to sleep. Success!
Success for about fifteen minutes.
What followed was about an hour of Oliver banging on the door, calling out for me and screaming. It was damn special. I decided to leave the door open and that only meant he could now get out of his room and come into our room. After ten trips back to Oliver’s bed – I’m not joking – I finally placed the baby gate in his door so he couldn’t get out and crawled back into bed. The first time, he managed to yank the baby gate down. I put his butt back in bed and secured the gate.
Thirty minutes later, I gave up. I told Tucker to go and get the boy and put him in bed with us. I went back to sleep, so did Oliver. We got up for the last time around 7:30am.
I’m not sure yet what Tucker and I are going to do about this new development but we’re going to talk about it when he gets home. And now, you have an idea why Cara is slowly inching up the “favorite kid” measuring stick.
Image/Flickr
