There’s this two year old who lives in my house. I’m not going to name names but if you’re real sleuthy, you might figure out who I’m talking about. But anyway, this two year old is driving me absolutely insane.
For the past few weeks, he’s been waking up early. Insanely early, like before time even starts (because time only starts at 6am right?). He’s been waking up at 5-something. Sometimes the prettier side of 5, sometimes the uglier side. Either way, I’m not a morning person and anything before 6am is just too fucking early.
And to add to the fun, he’s also started waking up at night. Mind you, I know people whose kids wake up as a norm but mine don’t! Mine just don’t! Except now this one does. And he’s out of his big boy bed and out of his room and in the hallway and all “mummy mummy mummy” and I’m out of bed in a flash before he wakes the baby. And so before you know it, it’s the middle of the night and I’m lying in his bed trying to negotiate with a mini sleep terrorist.
For a while I just told him to go back to sleep and I’d go back to bed and he’d come out again and I’d bring him back in and go back to bed and he’d come out… and so the story goes. So against all of my better judgement (you know, never stay with him until he’s asleep blah blah), I lie down with him just so he’ll stay put. And then I fall asleep.
I wake up and he’s asleep! Yay! Now I’m afraid to move, to breathe, to wake the pint sized terrorist. I lie there and imagine all the ways I can get the fuck out. I imagine a silent bulldozer slash forklifty thing gently lifting me off his bed and delivering me back to my own cosy bed. I imagine that a very very quiet giant will come and with his huge but obviously delicate fingers, he’ll pluck me up and place me back in bed. But in lieu of the fact that bulldozers are never quiet and giants aren’t known to be delicate, I just lie there and will myself to teleport back to my own room.
In the end I don’t teleport. I move with the silence and precision of a ninja (or any parent trying to do the same thing) and stealthily creep out of his room. I’m back in my room for an hour (or a few if I’m really lucky) before he’s up again.
So that’s my night! And then we’re up again at 5! “I love it!”, said no one ever.
And the days… oh the days.
Terrible-twos meets pre-threenager on steroids. The tantrums, the screaming, the demanding, the absolute irrationality that would boggle even the most brilliant minds. I’ve resorted to meditation to try and maintain some semblance of zen in my head (seriously) because this shit will drive a person crazy, I’m not kidding. Mark my words: it will break you. The test of your patience, your will, your strength, your self belief, your self worth, your everything. They’ll test you and just when you think you’ve got this, they’ll up the ante. That’s the game.
So we get through the day and I put him to bed, and I unravel from the tension wound so tight around my whole being… and guess what, he’s up again.
It’s a phase, they say. A fucking phase.
(Having said that, the 18 month sleep regression damn near killed me too and that was a phase)