Most of it probably didn't fit in the "healthier than thou" category, and as I told my mother on the phone, I felt bad. She laughed at me and asked why. Well, because it's not the "hey I tried to make you a gourmet toddler meal" approach to motherhood I was envisioning while my husband was out of town for the week. It was more the, "we're poor and I didn't go to the store for lasagna noodles and milk" version.
Meh. My one bowl of chili and the peas/corn combo, even in the freshest state, weren't on the gourmet list either. Since I was starving (or I like to tell myself I was), I just housed a bologna and cheese sandwich at 11:30 p.m. to try warding off a headache that really won't go away unless I drag my ass to bed. And the headache is likely because of a lack of caffeine, reading in the dark and begging my eldest to just go the fuck to sleep already. Here, listen to Samuel L. Jackson tell this bedtime story, which basically is every single night in my house.
Thanks, Mr. Jackson.
By 10:45 p.m. I was done waiting for her to fall asleep - our routine consists of bath, relax, brush teeth, pee, get into bed, flop around, whine, get pissy, flop around some more and, the most important part, see just how frustrated mommy gets before she gets to the point of hating bedtime all over again. And repeat. Every night. For the last year. But usually she's out cold by 9:30ish.
I've gone so far as to sit in Josie's room reading to her, reading to myself, sitting on her bed because she wants to snuggle, laying in her bed with her because one of us may as well get some rest if we're going to play this game for THREE HOURS, etc. Tonight, I was officially to the point of letting her sleep where she drops. Seriously, my 3-year-old must shred the memo I send out every afternoon saying bedtime is at 8:30 p.m. In fact, I think she laughs at me while shredding it, and then lights it on fire ... with her mind.
I retreated to the kitchen in an attempt to make her put herself to sleep in her bed. She followed me. She's a stealthy little shit, too, because I didn't hear her until she was on the bottom step. I want to know her ninja moves for bypassing the two creaky stairs.
No sooner did I tell her I wasn't going back upstairs with her and she went up, dragged her pillows back down the stairs, along with four of her blankets, said, "Thank you, Mommy, for letting me sleep down here" ... and passed out. What!? My head is pounding. I have read two short stories waiting for her to fall asleep in her bed. I was quite literally in tears because I just wanted time to quietly pick up the toys scattered throughout the bottom half of the house. And this is what it took?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking at this like it's a gift horse. Nope. Because I know tomorrow is a completely different story. It always is. And by Friday when the Daddy Person is home, even if things go smoothly the rest of the week, I'm sure there will be some frustration with games at bedtime because of a long drive and too much math fun had over the course of his Nerd It Up week of engineer training.
Being the parent sucks and is glorious all at the same time. I totally have plans to drag that child's butt out of bed no later than 8 a.m. Glorious, right? That means I have to get up before 8. Bring on the suck.
And with that, my friends, I'm calling it a night.
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