Monday, January 03, 2005

Forgot to write...

about one of those moments that really makes you question whether you should have had a child. J was tired yesterday - he'd had a big weekend, and decided he wasn't interested in a nap yesterday, so he was really wiped out by early evening. He was literally falling asleep in his dinner around 5:30! He nearly did a face plant in the pancakes more than once. Finally it was clear that bath time couldn't wait until the usual 7:30-8:00, so off we went for a bath. After that, he seemed to have gotten a second wind, and when I tried to put him down around 7:45 (MUCH earlier than usual), he just went berserk. It felt like my child had turned into a wildebeest. I knew he was exhausted, and I kept telling myself it wasn't me, it wasn't that he was scared of something, he was just too tired to function normally. But he just went wild - screaming, "no bed, no bed", saying he wanted to rock, didn't want to rock, wanted milk, didn't want milk, and on and on without ceasing. Finally he was just letting loose with these guttural wails and sobs, we'd gotten well past the point of forming words. I couldn't decide whether to cry (because it hurt me to see him so wound up and so upset) or to laugh (because tantrums are really kind of funny if you can emotionally distance yourself from them). It took a while, but once he finally settled down, he was snoring to beat the band within a couple of minutes. I didn't hear a peep out of him all night, and I had to wake him up at 6:45 this morning (I'd been afraid an early bedtime would have him up at 5:00 or so, but thankfully it didn't). I think he'd have slept longer if I hadn't had to wake him up - he did NOT want to get up this morning, that's for sure. When I first spoke to him, he rolled over without opening his eyes, grabbed his blankets and pillow, and rolled over on top of them! LOL I can only imagine what he'll be like as a teenager.

Well, it's lunchtime. I'd better go try to find something I can eat that I don't have to spend money on - in the interests of improving financial stability, I won't be eating out much at all, at least not anytime soon.

More later!

2 comments:

Jay said...

Lisa,

We just watched "The Terminal" and I was reminded of the "ski bum special" lunch of crackers with a tasty ketchup filling. Free and light!

That "overtired" frenzy the kids get into is tough. It's also funny. To gauge whether Girl is tired I say "Girl, say I'm not tired." She does and I can tell just how tired she is by the protest in her voice. It's really funny.

Am I a bad dad?

Jay

Lisa @ The Plain-Spoken Pen said...

Jay, I haven't seen "The Terminal," but I have a feeling that my lunches for the next few weeks will look a lot like that ski bum special! LOL

And no, you aren't a bad dad - hey, you've got to have some way to figure out when they're tired, Lord knows they certainly never *admit* to that!

Lisa