Recently in Kid(s) Category

Mom,

This morning you lay on the floor of your sewing room for an hour so I could sleep on you. This was after I peed in my crib, your lap, and your bed in three separate incidents within twenty four hours.

So you can blog all you want about how you're not going to work at being a superstar parent. I determine the level of effort it is necessary to put forth around here, not you. I've got you wrapped around my tiny little grubby finger and we both know it.

Now where's my banana?

Love,
Your Son
a.k.a. The Little Master

p.s. Wait until my needs are more complex and my behavior more calculated. Then we'll see how far your insouciance gets you.

So the aftermath of BlogHer is this: we have lost all progress we had made on having Boy Detective sleep more than 2 hours at a time at night.

Whenever I watch a vampire movie, I sit in my chair watching the sun's rays move and thinking "Get inside get inside get inside GET INSIDE GET INSIDE." I'm totally freaked out by the approach of non-safety, the transition from "it's ok" to "it's really, really not ok."

Nighttime here is now really, really not ok, and there's no inside. I stay up late because I'm afraid to go to bed and start the process of being repeatedly jolted out of REM sleep again. Last night he went to sleep at 8:30, and woke up at 10:15, midnight, 1:50, 2:30, and then twice more between 3:00 and 7:00 but honestly my mental record-keeping got a little hazy.

I thought he was cold, so I started putting pants on him. I know he's cutting his fourth tooth, so I'm giving him Tylenol before bed. And four hours later. And four hours later.

While we were in San Francisco, it was so bad that I ended up with him sleeping next to me in bed, between my body and a huge pile of pillows, and I just hoped that he wouldn't suddenly develop the ability to wake up quietly and move around stealthily. I was just too tired to get up out of the bed anymore and retrieve him from the crib, rock him, put him back down, go back to bed, only to have him start crying again five minutes later.

I also spent a lot of time walking around with him in the lobby of the swanky hotel in my ladybug pajamas. The night staff at the Westin St. Francis are really nice, by the way.

Sleeping next to me didn't help Boy Detective sleep any better, and sometimes he wouldn't even want to nurse when he woke up. I actually had to sit up and rock him and then lie back down with him wrapped in my arms, which meant I couldn't sleep. So I think we've established that it's not lack of company and it's not hunger waking him up and keeping him awake.

I told myself a while ago that I was going to stop mindfucking this, because I can come up with 5.2 million equally plausible explanations for why it's happening and none of them seem to do me any good in ameliorating the situation.

But it's gotten fucking scary. Tuesday C-Man had to go into work late because I couldn't get up. Thursday I started having dizziness attacks whenever I would sit up or stand up, and by 6:00 when Boy Detective woke up for the day I fed him and then called C-Man to come get him because I couldn't safely carry him to the changing table. I have no idea why I'm functional today.

So WTF Boy Detective? What's your drama? Is there a master plan here? A list of demands? I don't think you're old enough to be manipulating me, especially because when you wake up you sound really upset - not just mad, not just "hey, are you forgetting me?" So what's going on?

Clue Mama in before she drops dead, please. Even Dad pinch-hitting will not be sufficient to keep the wheels on our bus if you keep this up.

You heard me.

I hate Goodnight Moon.

I don't hate that someone gave it to Boy Detective, because it was a thoughtful gift, and it's a classic, etc. But I hate the book. The colors are garish, I don't understand why half the pages are in black and white, and every time I read "a bowl full of mush" I gag a little.

Goodnight Moon was the basis for a beautiful and heartbreaking scene in Playing By Heart, which you should see if you haven't.

Aside from that, let's just say that if The Dog eats our copy, she will be richly rewarded.

Grandma: Yep, that's Tank Girl! Say hello! Hi, Tank Girl! There she is!

In case you've lost track, my son turns 10 months old on Friday.

Today he was asked to leave the public library due to rowdiness.

Apparently, banging on a metal flower pot with a wooden puzzle piece and yelling loudly is not appropriate library behavior.

I can't wait for junior high.

I would tell you, but then I'd have to wash my own mouth out with soap.

Suffice it to say that I have never slept in the driver's seat of my car parked outside my own house from 3:45 to 5:15 in the morning before, and I hope never to do so again. Desperate times, though, call for desperate measures, and when the kid who has not actually slept in 24 hours is finally asleep, you DO NOT take a chance on your steeply uphill driveway, the noise of the garage door, and the automatic garage light. You just lock your doors, lean back, and hope that the universe does not send a violent person down your block in the next hour because you know there's no way you're going to stay awake for much longer.

1. I washed Boy Detective's umbrella stroller on the driveway in preparation for our weekend trip to Houston. Then I left it there so my mother in law could back over it with the car.

2. Boy Detective still does not like avocado. I am worried about his Texas citizenship status.

Me: Boy Detective, this would be a lot cuter if you weren't also yanking on a handful of my hair.

Boy Detective: I'm cuddling you, Mom!

Me: Is this really what cuddling is like?

Boy Detective: Now I'm trying to cuddle your eyeball!

I have two informal rules about Boy Detective and sleep.

One is that I don't leave the room if he's crying. (I have made a few exceptions when I was so angry I thought I would yell at him or I wanted to shake him. In those cases, it was better for me to take a minute or five in my room to breathe before resuming parenting.) I get him calm and put him down before I leave him to fall asleep.

The other rule is that if he really starts to cry, I go to him. I want him to know that if he is upset, I'll be there. I do not let him cry alone in his room if I think he's actually upset. (If I can tell he's just ticked, I often wait and see.)

The problem with my rules is that they're based on my deep philosophical and moral convictions about how I personally want to treat my child, so I can't just chuck them out the window when I get desperate.

It's not that I think getting more sleep is unnecessary, I just can't figure out a way to do it. I don't think afternoon naps are going to fill in for the fragmented sleep I'm getting at night, since Boy Detective is waking up screaming anywhere from 3 to 8 times. A lot of sleep advice is vague, or it doesn't answer the question "And then when that doesn't work, what do you do next?" His sleep pattern changes every 3-6 weeks anyway, so even if I figured something out, what are the chances that it would work for very long? Also, most proposed solutions that do fit with my values involve me initially getting less sleep, which I currently find terrifying.

Tired. Would like to go back to pre-Christmas behavior when baby slept 7-9 hours each night in one stretch. OK? Thanks.

My good blog friend Suebob asked a question recently. (Or maybe not recently. Sorry.)

Anyway, the question was basically with looming environmental disaster, the distinct possibility of wars for basic resources, etc., how does one work up enough confidence in the future to procreate?

My answer is that you just have to not think about the potential for armed gangs showing up at your house to kill you for gasoline at the same time as you think about your child's future.

Of course, once they're born, you have to continue not to think about it. Especially at 3am when you're the only one awake, and you've seen Children of Men and I Am Legend and thought of them as possible futures, not fiction.

I'm so screwed.