3.21.2007

My Annoying Toddlers

So the babies? They grow up. They assert their independence. They don’t remain slugs that wither along doing as they are told. And the growing up? It starts at..oh….lets say…19 months, 21 days, 9 hours.


We have had a rough couple of nights with the boys this week. Cole was running a fever (clueless as to why…it appeared and then *poof* was gone 2 days later) and therefore was the king of the complaining. Whiney McWhinerson. All. Day. Long. And nights too. So much whining in the nights. We ended up falling into the great parenting pitfall – we brought him in bed with us. OK – I will be fair to Todd here – I brought him in bed with us. Because I was tiiiiirrred (I wonder where Cole got the whiney genes from?). And he kicked and moaned and kicked some more. But – I could sort of rest there as opposed to downstairs playing legos. And this continued until last night when there was no sign of fever and we were all spent – so we dumped the boys in their beds and headed to bed. And then all hell broke loose.


Roark and Cole howled and screamed at the idea of sleeping. I think they may have yelled “fuck you” – but it is hard to tell when they slur their words so much. The point here is that they were VERY pissed off that we would dare make them go to bed. Cole specifically wanted OUT. OF. THE. DAMN. BED. ALREADY. He kept yelling at us, which must have meant that he was hoping we would wear down and just put him in our bed.


After yelling for all of 10 minutes I heard a huge “KERTHUMP” followed by hysterical screaming, coming from their room. I then knew that Cole had just hurled himself out of his bed. I went upstairs, calmed him down, put him in bed, and left the room…listening to him and Roark continue with the screaming. 2 minutes later? There was Cole standing at the gate to his room – yelling at me. So – back in bed he went, and he proceeded to climb out WHILE I WAS STILL IN THE ROOM. Defiant little boy! There was simply no keeping him in his bed at this point… dilemma.


So at 9:something last night we proceeded to turn Cole’s crip into a toddler bed. Which we knew he would not stay in. We then baby-proofed the room. Of course guilt got the best of us and we did the same with Roark’s bed – thinking how mad he would be that Cole could roam free while he was stuck like a rat in a cage. We then put the monsters in bed, shut the door, shut the baby gate, and went to bed ourselves. Oh! The crying!


We listened to them cry until about 10:30. I could hear them stubling around the room – hitting the door, stomping around. And then, all of a sudden? Silence. Wonderful, beautiful silence. Of course the quiet got the best of me while I lay in bed wondering if they were quiet because they somehow managed to escape out the window, or perhaps pulled the dresser over on themselves – and were now dead. What? Those are not normal thoughts? Seriously?


I finally went into their room to check on them – and would you believe it? They were each in a bed asleep. And – they slept all night long. Until 7:30 this morning. Holy hell, that was nice.