Fred and George still haunt me.
Not in the way they used too, I mean I’m not afraid of ghosts anymore, but their names still bring back delicious terror.
You see…daddy told me when I was a wee tot that two ghosts lived inside the walls of my bedroom and if I dared to climb out of my bed they would get me.
Let’s not even bring up how demented this is. When I’ve suggested it was a form of child abuse to my dad he still falls over laughing.
But one day I realized, like Jim Carey in the Truman show, that no apparition appeared if I defiantly stuck out a toe or a limb.
I caught on pretty quick that my reality was not REALITY.
Eventually I worked up the courage to run like a bat out of hell out of my room and sneak over to my mom’s side of the bed who always let me in for a cuddle.
I thought a lot about Fred and George last night because my toddler refuses to stay in her bed. And after two weeks of not sleeping and now fighting off illness (probably from massive sleep deprivation) I’m almost ready to ask Fred and George for some advice. They keep appearing in my feverish hallucinations taunting me with a whole night of un-interupted slumber.
Kolby moved into the BIG GIRL BED a few weeks ago. We took the crib down, stored it in the garage and unknowingly kissed sleep goodbye. Most of the time I take the hit for Tim, because out of the two of us I do better without sleep, although he had to step up last night as I borderlined pneumomia.
It’s the second time we’ve tried the BIG GIRL BED. After a failed attempt a year ago, we aborted mission and put her back in the crib. Last time it was because she potty trained and needed help to use the restroom in the middle of the night. I couldn’t handle waking up every three hours to help her tinkle, so up went the porta-crib again in our room so I could at least keep the lights off as I guided her tiny butt to the potty.
But now she is physically too big to stuff in the porta-crib. The fact that she was complaining about her legs and arms hurting might have been an indication we had played out that card a little too long.
In goes Kolby into the BIG GIRL BED and within one hour she has snuck back into our bed to go horizontal on us and kick one of us in the head or the kidney. She lies on me, throws elbows in my chest and breathes her sweet baby breath in my face.
I put her back to bed. Tim puts her back to bed. Press repeat over and over until we are so exhausted that Tim goes to the sofa around 3:00am to salvage any sleep whatsoever and then Kolby kicks the crap out of me until 6:00am when I have to get my teenager ready for high school.
I am a ZOMBIE and I am way too old for this.
I’d toss her out like a sailor if not for the fact that I love her soooooo much. This third baby of mine has both daddy and I whooped, sucker tied and wrapped around every phalange.
She is terrifically spoiled and we are wimps when it comes to her little grin and Goldilocks.
Is bribery the next option? Will it take a puppy to get her to sleep in her bed? I’d gate her in but she shares a room with her sister with an adjoining bathroom to her brother’s room. She’ll just walk right through into his room and find us. She’s smart like that.
This kid needs incentive…
What makes a toddler want to stay in bed?
All advice will be considered except ghosts and spanking.
