“Moooooooommmmmmyyyyyy!”
It’s a sound I instantaneously recognize. I may not move, but I hear it. It’s a nighttime call from one of my kids. Which one, I’m not exactly sure, because in those nighttime hours they all kinda sound the same. One might think I could rule out the baby since he doesn’t talk yet, but my mind doesn’t work that fast when woken from a deep sleep. In the wee, all-too-early hours of the morning, we’re lucky I’m functioning enough to be able to rule out the dog.
I lay there still in the dark – as if they’ll sense that I’m awake with too much movement – listening for anything else. Silence means I get to turn over and forget the whole thing ever happened, another cry means I need to respond or they’re going to want to get out of bed. I don’t want them getting out of bed. Because their next stop is probably my bed and no one sleeps well with toddler feet jammed in their rib cage. Trust me, I know. Best to respond quickly.
I run to their bedside and if I’m lucky, I avoid the dog weaving back and forth in front of me, the Legos on the floor, and plethora of naked dolls strewn around their room. If not, well, at least I got there quickly. I suppose I can nurse that Lego wound later.
“Are you sick? Are you hot? Are you cold? Do you need to go to the bathroom?”, I run through the myriad of options they can choose from, while begging them to stop screaming. Because the only thing worse than one child up at 4am, is 3 children up at 4am. Again, trust me, I know. The key is to get through the triage list quickly and get them back to bed quickly, because every minute their up makes it harder for them to go back to sleep.
It’s around this time that I mutter something under my breath about my husbands uncanny ability to snore through our children crying and a baby monitor on the highest possible setting sitting right next to his head on his nightstand. Seriously, how does he do that?
The sick/hot/cold/full bladdered child and I normally settle on one of the options that I’ve listed for them, only for me to pick a blanket that’s adorned with an unacceptable character, take them to a bathroom they “don’t like”, or attempt medicine they refuse because it’s the wrong flavor (I blame Diamatapp on this one for making their grape cough medicine so yummy that my oldest refuses to take anything else…and convincing her that grape Dimatapp will do nothing for her tummy pain isn’t happening). Eventually, and normally out of sheer exhaustion, they agree to take the medicine only to spit it halfway across the room because they changed their mind and have again deemed the flavor unacceptable.
By the way, did I mention I’m doing this all in the dark? Ahhh…the joys of nighttime parenting!
You see, for me daytime parenting and nighttime parenting are very different. I mean, besides the dark. Daytime parenting is sharing my child’s excitement over a her new classroom “job” at school, finding out what they’d like to have for dinner, encouraging them to try something new, or asking 10 different questions just to find out how their day was. It’s about sharing moments and watching them grow.
Nighttime parenting is triage. Assess the situation. Determine the problem. Fix the problem…or sleep with little feet wedged in your rib cage. And while I’m quite convinced that my kids occasionally spring out of bed in the morning a few inches taller, I have no desire to watch the growing process while it’s actually happening at night. I’ll just happy to believe it when they’re clothes seem a little snugger in the morning.
It’s not that I love my kids less at night…it’s just that I really LOVE sleep. Like, a lot. And for 6-ish hours hours per night we get to reunite, just almost like old times. I don’t want anything to come between us. Me and sleep, that is. And that story about getting selected the coveted position of “paper passer” at school, isn’t very interesting to me at 4am. And quite frankly, I’m too tired to even feign interest. I want to, but I can’t. We can share those moments in the morning. So, while I don’t love my kids less at night, I definitely love them a little more during daylight hours.
And with that, I bid you goodnight. Besides, I need to go nurse that Lego injury…
What about you? Is your nighttime parenting different than your daytime parenting? Do you find yourself doing late night triage?
So funny. So true. Yes, with our three-year-old nighttime training, I find myself either asking “Did you wet the bed?” or “Do you need to go potty?” as I’m running in her room. Luckily, when she does wander into our room, she’s so quiet we don’t even know how she got there. But we definitely know she’s there by the two toddler feet jamming themselves in my ribs and kicking me in the face. Gotta love parenting!
Ha ha! My kids are stealthy when they enter the room, but the thrashing and feet in the ribs give them away every time! Sorry you deal with the same thing, but glad that I’m not alone!