Why is this taking SO long

We are almost at the two-week cut off for the sleep schedule thingy.  Why is this taking so long!  I am tired, they are tired and I have landed both feet into frustration.  Completely disgusted is gaining on me and I am sure to feel beaten when that hits.  I did this when they were 2 years old and it was easier.  They were less mobile and less able to fight the process.  When all else failed then, we had the dreaded doorknob.  I love the doorknob; it was acceptable where a pad lock is not.  It is designed to keep kids out of a room but we totally used it to keep kids IN a room.  Worked like a charm.   Years after the doorknob was removed, it still struck a cord with the twins when we mentioned it.  "You had better stay in your room tonight and sleep, I would hate to use dum dum dummmmm, THE DOOR KNOB."  They would look at us with wide eyes, like the OMG I just saw Santa coming out of the chimney, eyes and magically they would settle right down.  

                                                         The Doorknob

Story behind the doorknob.

Daddy was out of town and I thought it was time to move the twins out of their cribs.  The next two nights that I went through were hell and doing it while daddy was out of town was the only way to get er done!  He would never have survived it and would have stopped me cold in my tracks.  See Below.

They were climbing out of the cribs (once this starts it is time to do away with the cribs.  The challenge is over AND its all fun and games until someone breaks an arm) and playing in their room until that got boring, then they migrated out into the hall and made their way downstairs.  Back in this day I was less worried about them coming down stairs and aggravating me and more worried about them falling down the steps.  I started taking the cribs apart and OH MY GOD!  I was wicked pregnant when he put them together but I swear I do not remember him using titanium, a sauter gun and super glue.  I tried using screwdriver after screwdriver and nothing was budging!  I even used a hammer and a chisel and got a little movement.  This told me I needed the big guns so I went into the garage and summoned the axe.  I made the twins sit on the guest bed, which is across the hall, and in no way close to the scene of the crime that was about to take place.  I will never forget the look on their faces.... oh yeah, this bitch is crazy and daddy left us here with HER.  I went to work with the axe and after not to terribly long, I had the makings of a good fire.  Chips and pieces everywhere!  There is more than one way to skin a cat and I was pretty sure that now I did not need to bother with eBay or good will for these cribs...they were toothpicks now!  I cleaned up the mess and redecorated their rooms.  They were now going to sleep on the crib mattresses on the floor until I decided what kind of bedroom suites I wanted for them.  Dark was on its way and I was going to need help with bedtime.  Our toddler whisperer had given me some advice, I had formulated a plan and I was ready to go.  I was getting nervous and thought, I can't do this alone, and I need a friend with a Quaalude and a blindfold!  SO daddy being out of town, I enlisted another wing man, my best friend.  Not just for moral support but also for a witness that my children went unharmed.  She got here, we all had dinner, read books and time for bed.  We administered good night kisses and explained that if they got out of bed and left their room that I would first close the door.  Took about 10 minutes and I had to mommy up and close the door.  I explained then that the next step was to use the new doorknob.  I didn't explain the level of difficulty with said doorknob; I was going to let them figure that out for themselves.  Again, 10 minutes later.... I had to use the doorknob.  My friend and I went upstairs, turned on the light and put the doorknob on.  I pinched my fingers 3 times trying to get that sucker on!  Finally it snapped into place and it was on!  We stood outside the door and waited.  We were both sweating like thieves for what was about to happen.  All of a sudden plop plop, we heard little feet hit the floor and whispering going on.  30 seconds later, the doorknob started trying to turn.  Nothing, then the other twin tried, and again...nothing.  They started talking to each other.  "Help me, help me get this door open."  "I am trying, I can't get it."  It escalated from there and suddenly the screaming started.  

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We paced the floor waiting.  I was crying, best friend was crying, twins were screaming.  I went downstairs and took a shot of tequila and went out onto the deck to smoke a cigarette!  This sucks!  Came back upstairs and looked at my friend, it was now her turn to go downstairs for a couple shots of courage.  What happened next made us both laugh and cry.  The door knob stopped rattling but the screaming got worse...." MOMMY MOMMY PLEASE LET US OUT, MOMMY MOMMY PLEAAASSSSEEEE"!!!!!"  We heard something at the bottom of the door and looked down to find twenty little fingers feverishly trying to break free and find mommy.  OMG, now I know how the people working for Hitler must have felt.  I decided right then that if I ever wrote a book, the chapter that covered sleeping would be called Nights in concentration camping!  It seriously looked like the gas chamber in Auschwitz!  Fingers under the door and screams for freedom.  My friend said, "Just go downstairs...this is bothering me but it’s killing you."  She was right.  I went downstairs and took another shot.  Went back upstairs and stood with her for a few minutes (we were 45 minutes into this process now) the screaming stopped and it got silent.  We waited a few more minutes and then decided to go in.  The twins were both on their mattresses sound asleep.  The boy child was all the way on his and the girl was half on and half off when she gave it up.  We loved on them both and came downstairs to recover.

My husband called that night and said, "Hey honey how are you?  How are the twins?"  He also added, "you sound tired."  Shit he had no idea.  I knew none of the above could have been done with him in residence (he can't handle the tough love parenting thing) but I also figured he would hit the roof when I told him how it went down.  I started my story.  I was sure to tell him that I had gotten advice on how to do this from our source.  I wanted him to blame her or at least hate us both but more than anything understand that I was not evil just determined to keep them in bed and proceed with a good schedule for sleep.  He went silent for the most part when I told him I enlisted an axe.  I think he imagined this......

I also went in even further to ask him who the hell he put those cribs together for, King Kong?  Those things would have survived if our house blew away!  He laughed at his handy work but was still silent.  I went on to tell him about the doorknob, fingers under the door, shots, and the 45 minutes in hell and then softened the blows by telling him how we found the twins when we entered the room.  To my shock he said he was proud of me for doing it and that he could never had survived it without going in while they were screaming.  Did he mean this or was he just trying not to poke a sleeping bear?  I didn't say much other than, "well, thank you honey but we will see how tomorrow goes."  

The next night was a piece of cake, 20 minutes with the door closed of them talking and playing around and boom! Sound asleep and I never had to use the dreaded doorknob.  These are bright children.

Back to Current Day......

Fast forward 2 years and we are trying sleep schedule revamping.  I think we are on night number 4 now.  My husband and I look like two people who are coming down from a 6-week drunk.  We are tired, irritable and frustrated with the nights.  We have one good one and one bad one.  They sleep one night and act like the flying monkeys the next, compete with the music!  Make no mistake about it, we know the nights they sleep are not because of our mad parenting skills but because they are EXHAUSTED.  So last night we tried dum dum duummmmm...THE DOOR KNOB again.  Hell why not, worked WELL the first time so why shouldn't it work this time.  The twins are still pixie small and that doorknob is a bitch so lets give it a shot.  My husband dug through the hall closet until he found it.  Ahhhh, sleep cometh!  Well you CAN read our poker faces and we are stoked, hard to hide it.  Our twins say nothing and we tell them nothing about our plans.  We put the doorknob on and close the door then come downstairs and settle in watching TV.  

We hear the feet hit the floor and the twins begin playing around.  No big deal as long as they stay in their room I don't care if they fall asleep on the dresser or in the closet.  Pretty soon they will figure out the door knob is back and we will embrace trauma as she pays us a visit.  You never know. Maybe we will even get a Passover on this visit?  NOPE, not this time.  It is different though, they start to wiggle the doorknob but there is no screaming or yelling.  It is silent.  We look at each other and think SAWEEEET!  We won this one, thank god for the doorknob.

Then, our happiness was crushed and we both felt like we had a big "L" on our foreheads.  We both have several college degrees between us and a combined 40 years of work experience under our belts and we have been outsmarted by two 4 year olds.  There was no noise from upstairs at all but you know.... as a parent, you sense when something is going on.  You just know they are up to something....primarily it is the quiet that gives it away right?   My husband and I were watching the door to the foyer and waiting to see little faces come through it.  Right on the other side of that door is the staircase.  Our eyes were glued to the doorway for twins when all of a sudden, THE DOOR KNOB slams up against the front door and rolls into the den.  No words, no laughing, no anything.  Nothing was needed, they won and they knew it.

They went into their room and both went to bed and went right to sleep.  The next time I go in there I am going to look at the wall to see if they are keeping score.