Tonight was pretty frustrating: I took care of G- while Linda went out for the evening, and he’d had a nap, so wanted to stay up late. Well, there’s little point reasoning with a three year old, but by about 10pm I’d had enough of reading books and waiting for him to stop yawning long enough to tell me he wasn’t ready to go to bed. So, I took him to bed.
The little nipper wouldn’t go to sleep, though. He was so tired that he was falling over when he tried to sit up in bed, but as much as I tried to help him just let go of the day and fall into dreamland, it just wasn’t happening. 10.45pm or so he decided that his strategy was to climb off the bed onto his (peacefully sleeping) sister’s bed. That wasn’t going to work, because if she woke up, then I’d have two cranky, tired little people to deal with, so I emphatically whispered “you canNOT get off the bed.” which, of course, just motivated him further.
Finally, about 10.50pm we got up abrubtly, with G- crying because he was baffled by what was going on (and I was more than a bit frustrated and upset by that point, if I may admit it here). We came downstairs and he settled down no more than 2-3 minutes later, and we got to sit and watch out the window for Linda to arrive home (fortunately only about 5-10 minutes later).
This just helps remind me that 1. parenting is tough work, 2. it’s impossible not to get frustrated if you have any delusions of having a semblance of coherence to your life, and 3. it’s okay. Whether you’re attachment parenting or just regular parenting, it’s absolutely inevitable that at some points you’re going to feel like slamming your head against a wall and crying out to the Gods “why!? why did you make me a parent?!”
And the Gods just smile down from their celestial palaces and leave us to “deal with it.” and so we must… as best we can.
Patricia Johnson
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