Abandon All Sleep, Ye Who Enter Here

I think Dante had it wrong.  There may well be a tenth circle of hell:  the affliction of the two-year molars.

And so I give you a tale of misery in the wee hours of the morning.

Prologue -  It is 8:30 pm and all is well.  Two little boys are sleeping peacefully, the youngest sated with the appropriate dose of ibuprofen.  A father and mother are happily, well more like resignedly, washing dishes and folding laundry.  Lulled into a false sense of security, the parents will stay up too late; one reading geeky science articles on his ipad and the other writing a fairly useless blog post.


12:30 am - With too little sleep yet accomplished, we awake to cries of "Need My Mommy!" that quickly build to a intolerable level.  Realizing that neither of us is fooling the other by feigning sleep, we quickly negotiate who will "take this one".  Hoping to give me a much needed break, Bill heads in.

12:45 am - Bill returns from the from the den of our screaming child saying, "He bit me!".  But, not yet ready to give up, he regroups and goes in for another round.

1:00 am - Oliver wakes up and begs, "Please make it stop!" He flees from the racket and dashes down the hall and into bed with me.  We huddle together and try to tune out Emory's cries.

1:15 am - Bill continues in vain to soothe Emory.  I hear him repeating the phrase, "you can rock with Daddy or get back in your crib", like a mantra.  But Emory is not having any of it.  He begins to emit a sound that can only be compared to the oink of an angry pig, causing Oliver and I to giggle. Bill is not amused.

Somewhere between 1:30 and 2:30 am - Oliver and I somehow manage to fall asleep.  Poor Bill continues to battle with our little one, until he (Emory) finally falls asleep as well.

2:30 am - Bill tries to get back into bed but is discouraged by the kicks of the wriggling little boy who has taken his place.  He heads downstairs to sleep on the couch.

3:00 am - Emory wakes up AGAIN and Bill repeats his efforts to soothe the child.  I would have stepped in at this point, but somehow, ignoring all motherly instincts, I have managed to block out the cries and sleep on.

Around 4:00 am - Bill heads back downstairs to his makeshift bed on the couch.

5:15 am - The screams begin yet again and this time I respond.  As I rock and rock...and rock my child, a feeling of dread washes over me.  I have just realized that Emory is not going to back to sleep.  Oh no...

5:45 am - I return him to his crib anyway and, as expected, he announces that he is ready to "get up now!". I try to reassure him that it is still nighttime and time to sleep, but he senses the fear in my voice and calls my bluff.  Unable to get him to even sit down in his bed, I toss in a couple of books and a flashlight.  Hoping that this will entertain him for just a few minutes, I sneak away as quickly as I can.

6:20 am - Fresh cries of "Need My Mommy!" blast through my fledgling dreams.  Bill springs Emory from his crib, and he launches himself down the hall and into bed with Oliver and I.  Then, we hear the words we least want to hear after the night we've had:  "Let's play superhero!".  Even Oliver, always ready for a good game of Spider man and Super Baby, throws the covers back over his head.  But he's a good sport and eventually crawls out to don his cape and join is brother.

6:30 to 7:00 am - Clinging to my pillow for dear life, I am pummeled by little feet and deafened by gleeful shrieking.  I am completely disoriented by the incongruity of the present scene with the turmoil of the past night, but reluctantly crawl out of bed.

7:30 am - Tired and frustrated, I allow my children to eat popsicles before breakfast.


This scenario has played itself out in varying degrees, nearly every night for the past month.  Poor Emory has never been a great sleeper but this teething thing has pushed him (and us) over the edge.  Unfortunately, I am going to have to resume my many nightly peregrinations to and from the rocking chair.  Emory loves his Daddy, but can't be comforted by him at night.  Given the amount of screaming heard in our house last night, now is clearly not the time to make a change.  I comfort myself with the knowledge that this will pass, but in the meantime, heaven help us.

The No TV Week Results

Our boys spent a week without TV, and a lovely week it was.  I expected there to be some change in the kids' behavior, but it was more significant than I had imagined.  We don't allow the kids to watch a lot of TV in the first place, so I'm surprised at the impact its removal had on the kids.

I told the boys up front about the plan and they were okay with it.  I explained that it wasn't punishment, but a chance to spend more time together.  Surprisingly, for the entire week, they never whined or begged for TV.  Oliver asked for it a couple of times, but then said, "Oh right, we're not having TV this week."  The absence of whining about wanting to watch TV and disagreements about what to watch was blissful. I think that by simply removing the temptation, the kids' attention naturally turned to other things.

I was ready with a few more activities than usual.  During the hour each day when they would have been watching TV, we made a giant valentine for Daddy, played with play dough, painted and made homemade pizza.  These are things we do anyway, but I was more intentional in planning our time. But what surprised me most was that it wasn't just the activity for "TV time" itself that changed; the boys played better together all week. Emory became really caught up in pretend play for the first time and we had deep sea divers, superheroes and villains running rampant in the halls.  I really enjoyed watching them play "Daddy and Baby".  Seeing your 2 year-old try to carry your 5 year-old around the house is pretty amusing.

I did have to give up that little time for myself that I usually get in the afternoons when the kids are watching TV.  This was a kind of hard and I really didn't get a whole lot done during the week.  But, the kids played so well together that I didn't feel too frazzled.  I think I was a more positive and patient with the boys than I normally am. We must have been feeding off each other's good energy.  Bill says that he could also see a difference in the kids when he came home from work - they were much less whiny and temperamental.

Well, we did let the kids have some TV time again this weekend.  Bill and I have both been sick with the most persistent cold ever, and we really did need the distraction.  Unhappily, as soon as the TV came back, the kids began whining for more when it was time to shut it off...

So, now we have to figure out what role we will allow the TV to have in our home from this point forward.  I think I am okay with the kids watching a little TV in the afternoon, provided the whining and fighting do not escalate again.  But, I also want to have lots of days without TV so that no one begins to rely on it again.  I don't have a problem eliminating it and I think the kids know that now.  All in all, it was a very worthwhile experiment and I feel a just little bit better about my parenting skills as a result.

TV Silence

I'd like to think that I always make sound parenting choices.  Wouldn't we all?  However, when I make a conscious effort to be more self-aware, I see some things I'm not too happy about.  The TV viewing habit of my kids is one of them.

I am not naive about evils of the almighty TV and I know what the research says.  I've seen it suck my kids in, slow their brain waves to a near vegetative state and spit them back out again cranky and wanting more.  It does not fit into the picture of what I want my kids' life to be like at home.  Don't misunderstand me, we do lots of good stuff together and the kids have the ability to entertain themselves, which I think is a highly underrated skill in children today, but I do feel like I rely on a little too much on TV.

It started out so well - a little bit of TV in the afternoon once nap/quiet time was done.  Just enough to provide a little peace for me and a treat for the kids.  But our little friends Super Why, Diego, Arthur and Elmo, are slowly creeping more and more into our days.  15 minutes here because Em is fussy and I need to make lunch, 20 minutes there because I really need to make a phone call.  Then there are the days when one of the kids or I am sick and TV is the easiest way to keep everyone calm and happy.

I know that its supposedly "educational" programming, but the nagging feeling that it has too much of a hold over my kids won't go away.  The more they watch, the more they want.  And now I'm seeing the kids squabble over who gets to pick the show or video.  Its cute when Emory says "watch something else, its too boring for me", but this isn't something I really want to hear.  Something that started out so innocently is making my kids less kind to each other and more demanding towards Bill and I.  TV should be a privilege, not a right, and I don't think that we are always reflecting that in our home.

So, I'm going stop shaking my head and feeling bad about my parenting skills, and pull the plug.  Starting today, the kids will be TV-free for a week.  I am curious to discover what changes this brings about for our family.  I suspect there will be more gained than just an end to TV-induced begging and whining.  I will have to be a little more present and prepared, but that is good for me too.

I'm off to see if the paints are dried up, search under the couch for missing puzzle pieces and make a fresh batch of playdough.  Hopefully we'll greet next weekend with a healthier outlook on TV.  Those cute cartoon faces aren't fooling me anymore.

Acting My Age

Just the other day, Bill stuck something in front of my face to read and as I jerked my head back to allow my eyes to focus on the text, I had a sudden memory of my mom doing just the same thing when I was little.  At the time I remember thinking, "Wow, if she can't read that, she is really getting old".  Oh great, here we go.

I have been thinking a lot about age lately. Namely, my perception of my own age.  I seem to have this lingering impression that I am still in my late twenties. I don't base this so much on how I look or feel physically, but on some kind of cognitive conception, or rather misconception, of my maturity level.  My brain seems to have stalled out somewhere after grad school.  That was a time when we were just scraping by - all grown up but not yet making it in the world as "grown ups".  I have never been able to quite shake that feeling.

I think I must be confusing put-togetherness with chronological age.  When I see a woman who looks and acts very polished, I usually assume that she is older than me.  I'm usually wrong of course.  I guess I keep thinking that when I'm really a grown up, I will have my act together too.  As it is, some days I am surprised by the fact that I actually have kids and am responsible for caring for them!  Aren't I still too young and immature for that?  I'm sure my parents felt like grown ups, right?

But, life is full of reality checks.  Our babysitter is a college sophomore and I feel like I can talk with her like I am semi "with it".  Yeah, cuz I'm a young, hip mom and I'm not so far out of college myself.  Then I realize that its been 10 years since I graduated, I am 16 years older than her and frankly I'm not so okay with leggings after living through the 80's, which was BEFORE SHE WAS BORN!  I guess I'm not very cool after all (is it still cool to say "cool"?).  And, every time I get up in the morning feeling achy and tired- which is most days lately, since I have a teething toddler who can't seem to make it for more than 3 hours at night without me at - I feel betrayed by my body.  You are only as old as you feel? That does me zero good.

And so, I slowly feel the concept of my real age creeping into my head.  But its not all bad.  I am starting to shake off that struggling, insecure, post-graduate student feeling.  We're getting ready to sell our house and upgrade to something a little more grown up.  You know, more than one bathroom and not in a neighborhood where the foot traffic that passes by us in route to the bus stop is a source of new and colorful language for our children.  As I look online at pictures of houses in our price range, I feel a sense of wonderment at the thought that we could actually be mature enough to live in those places.

I know that I may never have my act together enough to feel like a grown up.  Maybe no one really does.  But, I'm learning that its not really about acting my age, its about embracing where I'm at in my life.  I like it here and I look forward to all that is to come.