Why is it so difficult to get a child to go to bed?

It’s always one more thing. Okay, I’ll go to bed if I can just watch this show. Just ten more minutes. Is that more than fifteen minutes?

The adorable thing. In the midst of a major blowout, she always says something naïve and cute and my heart melts.

“No! NOW!” I scream. She relents. Well, actually, she has no choice. I’ve turned off the TV and hidden the remote.

She seems shocked when I announce we’re brushing our teeth. “Brushing our teeth, too?” she asks. Like we haven’t done this every night for the last four years -- which we have.

“Yes,” I hiss. 

Labels: brushing teeth, Dawn Yun, poop, sleep

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There are no sick days for mothers.

I didn’t consider this very carefully when I ventured into motherhood. I didn’t know that my precious little Petri dishes would soon be licking shopping carts, mouthing sippy cups belonging to runny-nosed toddlers and bringing home hungry viruses looking for a vulnerable individual: like a sleep-deprived, stressed out mom. 

Despite immune boosting herbs and positive thinking, I awoke Saturday morning with all the dreaded sign of flu: headache, sore throat, chills and the feeling that a herd of Buffalo had used my body as a dance floor all night.

The baby was crying and the clock read five-thirty in the morning.  “Your turn,” I said, nudging my sleeping husband.

“Nooo,” he whined, turned over and started snoring.

I tried to lift my head. Like a sack of bricks, it came crashing back down on the pillow.

“Please,” I begged, poking him a little harder, “I’m sick.”

As the baby’s cries begin to sound like a smoke alarm, he rolls out of bed, grumbling. He leaves the bedroom door wide open for my listening pleasure.

The crying stops and is replaced by the squeaking of the crib as baby is lifted out. Then plastic and metal clang together as my husband deposits baby on floor with the contents of the toy bin. A short pause and then I hear heavy creaking as my husband flops onto my four-year-old’s bed.

Not surprising, the four-year-old is now awake, rattling off thirty already formed questions to Daddy who is probably already snoring away.  Soon the baby is screeching again and both kids are in my room asking for breakfast.

Maybe I could drive myself to a hotel and have a real sick day. I’d check in, draw the blackout shades, and crawl under the clean sheets and sleep. The bathroom, TV and chicken noodle soup from room service would be a bonus. Most importantly, there would be no screaming babies, conversation-demanding preschoolers, clueless husbands or barking dogs.

But, before that can happen, my husband needs to wakes up.

By Maya Creedman

Labels: Maya Creedman, sleep

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My eighteen-month old is in her crib, arms stretched out around her head, her little face a picture of calm, blissfully off in dreamland.

Sound asleep.

And I'm envious.

I'd love to go to sleep right now! Can you imagine how great it must be to get to go to sleep when you're tired?

To actually HAVE to go to sleep?

To have someone else try very hard to get you to sleep? Awesome, I know!

Here I am, bone-tired, dragging, just struggling to clean up the carnage from the last hours of indoor play. . . well, make that here I sit typing, thereby avoiding all of the clean-up I should be doing.

But I'm just too tired.

Admitting how tired I am seals my fate. I'm now destined to drag through the remains of the day, yearning for sleep.

Amazingly, my kids will end their day battling to stay up until my final pleas of "GO TO SLEEP NOW!" finally will them into slumber.

And, even then, I won't get to go to sleep (okay, I'm whining, but I'm tired!). Once the house is quiet I'll finally have to get to my day of "to-do's," while my three little ones are all nestled snug in their beds, on fluffy pillows under warm blankets.

And I yawn. And I am envious. And tired.

By Maija Threlkeld

Labels: dining out with kids, Maija Threlkeld, sleep, tired mommy

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It’s 7 a.m. Saturday morning and the alarm is going off.

“Mama!” Hug mama! Huggaaa mamaaa! Come get me mama, come get meeeeee!”

Alas, there is no snooze button. I roll over and nudge my husband, who is pretending to still be asleep. I nudge (i.e., push) him a second time. And so begins our weekly weekend battle for the bed… as in, “who gets to stay in it for another blessed half hour or maybe even 45 minutes?”

I fire the first shot. “I got up last Saturday.”

“I put her to bed AND gave her a bath last night” he mumbles, pulling the pillow over his head.

“I got up with her at 3 a.m. to go potty AND I’m letting you golf tomorrow.”

There’s a pause.

“OK, I’m getting up, just give me two minutes.”

Golf. It’s a very powerful motivator where my husband is concerned. Meanwhile, the alarm continues, only louder and more insistent.

“Mama! Mama, Mamaaaa!!! I WANT TO GET OUT!!!!”

Note that she does not call for daddy. And daddy is still lying there, still with the pillow over his head, still trying to get another couple minutes of shut-eye through all the noise, which virtually guarantees that neither one of us is going to get any more sleep. This really drives me crazy, so that I fling the covers off the bed, and stomp down the hall to my daughter’s room, hoping that my martyrdom routine will at least score me some points for next week.

Emi is naked when I arrive, having peeled off her pajamas and Pull-Up while her parents were jockeying for sleep-in time.

“Hi Momma!” she pops up, all energy, all ready-to-get-the-day-started. “I need to get dressed!” She’s definitely a morning person. By now, my husband has shown up, clearly concerned that by claiming sleep privileges, he will be sacrificing his golf privileges. “I got her… to go back to bed.”

I give her a kiss, head back down the hall, shut the bedroom door, and dive under the covers. Five minutes later, I feel a cold wet nose nudging (i.e., pushing) my cheek. Our dog is also a morning dog. I get up, go to the kitchen, feed the dog, and as I pass the open door to my daughter’s room, I spot my husband curled up in a pile of animal throw pillows, his arm wrapped around Emi’s giant IKEA elephant, totally asleep. He looks like he’s 5-years old. I walk into the room and snuggle up next to him on the pillows and soon enough Emi dives on top of us. “Group HUG!!!!” she screams.

It’s 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and we are all awake and group hugging. For the moment, I’ve decided that it’s nice to be a morning person, too.

By Shannon Matus-Takaoka

Labels: baby, dog, golf, group hug, IKEA, mornings, sleep

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