The
sleep SNAFU with Thing One and Thing Two
Working
full time again and rounding out month 4…the twins are still on a bit of a
schedule roller coaster, no exaggeration to say we have a situation normal all
f’d up! We also tossed another
turd into the punch bowl recently by moving them into the same room. They wanted this move and I cannot
fathom why BUT I am an only child so I never understand why anyone wants to
share anything especially their room??
Hell, I have been married longer than I ever lived on my own and I still
have trouble sharing my room.
The
last thing to tackle in getting them back on track is the sleeping
situation. You got it; we saved
the hardest one for last. I dread
bedtime for them like a yeast infection!
It is painful some nights and takes forever! They still go to bed at regular time but now they jump,
play, talk, lights on, lights off, mommy I am going to pee, mommy I need some
water, mommy I need a kiss cause the water washed it off, PLEEEZZZZ come
snuggle with me, AND they also come downstairs for attention. We have let this happen because we are
tired and that produces lazy parenting sometimes. Judge me, I don’t give a damn cause sometimes we all do what
it takes to just get the job done.
When the night gets out of hand or we can’t take it anymore, we relegate
one of them to the guest bedroom and this settles it in 5 minutes. However, this cannot continue because
THEY wanted to sleep in the same room again and I like my occasional stay in
the guest suite. Everyone likes to
sleep alone from time to time. The
worst thing now going on is that they are coming to us in the middle of the
night and either waking us to get in bed with them OR they are crawling in with
us. NOT a good habit. I mean, master bedrooms are supposed to
be where the magic happens right?
NOT where twins crawl in between the master and his Mrs. I love to snuggle with my children
and on special occasion its fine for them to crawl in with us but on a regular
basis, oh hell NO. My bedroom is
my domain and you must ask to be in there and act right if you intend to stay…I
hold their father to this same standard.
Now
I am sure this is the point where I will get all the messages about how wrong
folks think I am. Oh come on now….its fine to let your child sleep with you
until he/she is a teenager, why must you take such a hard line hillbilly? These are probably the same people who
breastfeed their children until they take the SAT’s! Guess what? these are my opinions, I don’t care how
you do it in your house…this is how we roll in ours! With all that said, I miss the days of hugs, kisses, good
night we love you, light out and BOOM kids are asleep. It gave us lots of time with them and
lots of time with each other AND made for a peaceful morning. I need that back and so do my children
because we are schedule oriented and very regimented people. When we are off track we are all
evil. SO cheers to us for trying
to regain healthy sleep patterns.
I have a bottle of Patron and a pack of cowboy killers in the freezer
and I am not afraid to use them if this process doesn’t go well. I have literally worn a path in the
planks of my deck from pacing and have cigarette bushes growing at the base of
this deck from 4.5 years of child rearing and hell I don’t even smoke anymore!
Bringing the fun to night
number one.
We
got some tips from a person I affectionately call the toddler whisperer on
things to do that will help thing’s one and two. Biggest tip from her?
This is not going to be fun and it will get worse before it gets better. Great, I just love a challenge that
starts out like this.
We
sat down to dinner and decided to have a “family meeting”. I was not expecting a lot (a meeting
with 4 year olds???) but no food was thrown and no one cried so by and large it
went rather well.
We
told them that bedtime would be different from here on in. We were going to do bath time, brush
teeth, read books, hugs and kisses and then mommy and daddy are off the clock
for the rest of the night. Got it? Mommy and daddy are closed! We said we trust you to put yourselves
to sleep because you are big now and you know how to do it right? They said, “Well of course we do
mommy.” And they rolled their
eyes. We let them choose three
“friends” (our word for stuffed animals) that will help them get to sleep or
get back to sleep if they wake up.
Then we told them there will be no talking or coming to mommy and daddy,
peace out little brotha and sista now get her done, go to sleep, we will NOT
talk to you anymore for the rest of the night. For all you Pollyanna’s out there, (can’t believe you are
still reading my stuff, first of all) we are not Hitler, if someone needs us we
are there but every parent knows the difference between the “oh hell, something
is really wrong cry” from the “and the academy award goes to_____, cry”. We had some more conversation about the
subject and the family meeting was adjourned. During clean up my husband and I remarked about how well it
went and then sauntered upstairs to begin the new revolution.
Back
downstairs; we assumed our usual positions (him in his chair reading, me on
the couch playing on the computer or watching TV) and hope and pray that they stay in bed. No such luck. Slowly but surely all hell began breaking lose
upstairs. OMG, what now??? Feeling frustration and FEAR, we are having a "WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT" moment. My husband and I look at
each other like Roy Scheider in Jaws when he first see’s the shark
Since we are NOT interacting anymore NO MATTER WHAT!!!! I decided there was something I needed from my room so I could go have a look see. DAMN, the lights were on, they were jumping from bed to bed, every “friend” in the room was now on their beds, ottoman was gone, chair was turned backwards, all the drawers in the room were open and clothes were hanging from them and books scattered all about the room! I thought to myself OMG; the toddler whisperer said NO interaction, NO emotion and NO glances…poker face people, poker face! Well I am as subtle as a train wreck when I am stressed or pissed so how am I gonna handle this without exploding!!!??? I just rounded the corner, looked and made eye contact (oops, couldn’t help myself) then went into my room, and stood for a minute, STEAMING and then headed back downstairs. They saw me, of course they saw me, are you kidding? These little suckers smell fear like a damn shark smells blood so they not only saw me, they knew I was pissed! Why was I pissed? Because they know they are winning and more importantly right now, WE know they have staying power to the MAX so there is a good chance they WILL win! Oh no, oh hell no, these are children. We are two college-educated professionals. Hold it together, we are a united front, we are adults and we pay to live here. We need our house back, we want our house back.
Since we are NOT interacting anymore NO MATTER WHAT!!!! I decided there was something I needed from my room so I could go have a look see. DAMN, the lights were on, they were jumping from bed to bed, every “friend” in the room was now on their beds, ottoman was gone, chair was turned backwards, all the drawers in the room were open and clothes were hanging from them and books scattered all about the room! I thought to myself OMG; the toddler whisperer said NO interaction, NO emotion and NO glances…poker face people, poker face! Well I am as subtle as a train wreck when I am stressed or pissed so how am I gonna handle this without exploding!!!??? I just rounded the corner, looked and made eye contact (oops, couldn’t help myself) then went into my room, and stood for a minute, STEAMING and then headed back downstairs. They saw me, of course they saw me, are you kidding? These little suckers smell fear like a damn shark smells blood so they not only saw me, they knew I was pissed! Why was I pissed? Because they know they are winning and more importantly right now, WE know they have staying power to the MAX so there is a good chance they WILL win! Oh no, oh hell no, these are children. We are two college-educated professionals. Hold it together, we are a united front, we are adults and we pay to live here. We need our house back, we want our house back.
I
would like the thank the Academy
Delusions
aside, this is how it really went when they saw me! My son quickly tells his sister, “WILL you PLEASE turn
that light out, you are KEEPING me awake and I am TIRED of it”! He glances over to where I am to make
sure I am getting the full effect.
She reaches over and turns out the light. He then screams, “HEY turn it back on, now I can’t see to
get back to bed!” Yes folks, he
was standing up in mid jump from his bed to her bed when he made the first
statement so when she turned out the light, he had to make his landing in the
dark. I thought to myself, yeah
baby, busted now go to sleep. Denial
is such a safe place to be. I got
to the foot of the steps and heard, “ok, she is gone now and she didn’t even
say anything to us now turn the light back on.”
Damn
those little curtain climbers…it’s going to be a long night! I will be sure and pack some extra
protein in their lunches tomorrow so their little asses stay awake cause you
bet I am waking them up early early early!
The
jumping, laughing and loud playing continued. Daddy paid a visit upstairs perpetrating needing something
from our room and back downstairs with no interaction. Only making them think, ok brilliant
mommy and daddy, I see you and raise you!
It is now 8:30 pm and realizing we are not coming up anymore and we are
not talking to them, they make their 4 year old way downstairs and begin
dancing around us and trying to get us to talk to them. We look at each other while pushing
back laughter and say, “Gee I am tired and I think I will go to bed, sounds
like a great idea to me, lets go!”
So we get up, turn off the lights and TV; turn on the security alarm and
head up to bed. The twins ambled
around in the dark, eventually following us upstairs. They were confused but hung in there. We went into our room, locked the door
and then stared at it like a cow looking at a new gate! Nothing, for a few minutes and THEN
they started to scream and cry…”I AM MOVING TO TEXAS” “THEY WON’T TALK TO ME” “THEY DON’T LOVE US ANYMORE” “WHY ARE MOMMY AND DADDY ACTING
LIKE THIS” “CALL MY GRAMMY AND
GAGA AND TELL THEM TO COME GET ME” You could cut the drama with dental
floss! I did not know whether to
cry, fall on my sword or laugh, I mean these were serious Oscar nod
performances. The screaming
eventually settled to a conversation, which made them sound like an old married
couple. Hilarious right up to the
moment they got tired of lying down and wanted to screw with us again, they
were determined to break us. When
they realized we were not talking to them they started roaming the halls, which
led to BANGING on our door and laughing. Then they took it to the step of
sneaking up on us (have you ever heard an elephant sneak?) then they started
the one noise that still strikes fear and loathing in my black heart.
They started the kill chant from Friday the 13th. Chh chh chh chhh haa haa haa haa! Where the hell did that come from, that there is some big gun shit! Not only do we want to break her, we also want to drive her to a padded cell. OK now its time to get involved like a mofo! Make that noise stop it scares me! So now I sound just like them so daddy has 3 basket cases on his hands. Daddy springs into action because if momma aint sleepin well…neither is he. I felt ridiculous; we were hold up on our beds like two prisoners sans blindfolds that have been high jacked by two little people sans AK-47’s. Two little people that are not on the deed of trust, do not pay bills and at this stage of the game have only the rights we give them! OK, he says, I am going in, this is ridiculous! He stops the madness by gently walking them back to bed without saying a word and then leaving their room. It stops and by all accounts we did ok but they win! Why? We had to engage, which means they got the result they wanted, they got a rise out of us. Shit! We failed the first night out of the gate! Ok, fine I can live with that because like she said, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We look like two battle crazed Indians so we kiss each other good night, shake our heads and turn out the lights. Guess what….. Nobody crawled into bed with us in the middle of the night and we all slept happily ever after.
They started the kill chant from Friday the 13th. Chh chh chh chhh haa haa haa haa! Where the hell did that come from, that there is some big gun shit! Not only do we want to break her, we also want to drive her to a padded cell. OK now its time to get involved like a mofo! Make that noise stop it scares me! So now I sound just like them so daddy has 3 basket cases on his hands. Daddy springs into action because if momma aint sleepin well…neither is he. I felt ridiculous; we were hold up on our beds like two prisoners sans blindfolds that have been high jacked by two little people sans AK-47’s. Two little people that are not on the deed of trust, do not pay bills and at this stage of the game have only the rights we give them! OK, he says, I am going in, this is ridiculous! He stops the madness by gently walking them back to bed without saying a word and then leaving their room. It stops and by all accounts we did ok but they win! Why? We had to engage, which means they got the result they wanted, they got a rise out of us. Shit! We failed the first night out of the gate! Ok, fine I can live with that because like she said, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We look like two battle crazed Indians so we kiss each other good night, shake our heads and turn out the lights. Guess what….. Nobody crawled into bed with us in the middle of the night and we all slept happily ever after.
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