Oooh that little....#2

Oh them crazy kids. You go through all the trouble of training them at night by not responding to every cry and they start sleeping through the night (say at 6 months of age?) only to find that 6 months later you're right back where you started. Somehow, unbeknownst to you, child A has started a pattern of waking every night at 4 am, sounding like she's had a nightmare. So you rush in, night after night and stupidly wonder, why the increase in nightmares? Maybe she's going through a developmental change? Maybe she's getting sick?

No. She's just training your stupid butt to get up every night at 4 am and pat her. Sure the first time was innocent, she probably did have a nightmare. But nights 22 and 23? Probably not so much. So it takes an aside question, asked while at the doctor's office for freaking hand, foot and mouth disease, about supposed increases in nightmares around this age to be set straight. Because the kind doctor in all his wisdom basically tells you that you're being taken for a ride.

How did I not recognize this for the 89th time? I mean how many times does one of my children have to take advantage of my kindly sleepy stupid self before I realize it on night 2 instead of night 22? Or rather, before someone else calls it to my attention? I mean duh? Every night at 4 am she has a nightmare? Really? Is sleep that predictable?

And another question I'd like answered. How is it MORE disruptive to B's sleep when I go in and shut that girl up within moments (tiptoeing silently as humanly possible) than leaving her caterwauling for 20 minutes? But oh it is! The minute I turn that doorknob, silently mind you, because I have developed the instincts of a ninja when it comes to making no noise, that boy is up and looking for attention. And god forbid I give attention to the screaming child first, he then screams himself. Or heck, even if I give the screaming child second shrift? He still screams when I give someone else attention.

So, my nights are about to get easier. I have, for the past 2 nights, lain in bed listening to the varying cries of my daughter, and she is inventive I must add. I have struggled, felt guilty, analyzed every nuance of those cries, because she changes them up just to throw me off. And yet, she is alive in the morning. Smiling, happy. And we are both more rested. What a freaking paradox children are. Now the trick is to find all the other ways they are fooling me. Think I stand a chance?

On sleep

Speaking of evolutionary principles, what is the point of fighting one's bedtime till all hours when you know perfectly well you will be up at 6 am no matter when you fell asleep? It seems mighty counterintuitive seeing as how doctors have shown that inadequate sleep will affect you negatively in many ways. So why do toddlers fight their parents, sometimes for hours each night, about falling asleep in their beds and then spend the next day all bleary eyed and crabby for all to enjoy?

Of course it's not just the toddlers is it? How many of you adults out there fight your bedtime constantly? I say almost every day 'today I'm going to go to bed early because I feel like crap.' Does it happen? Oh no. Despite the fact that I know that my impatient, tired toddlers will be rattling their cages loudly and screaming starting as early as 6, I watch one more crappy show, read one more magazine, send one more email. I know I feel like my justification these days is that once the kids finally go to sleep I need a couple of hours to decompress but really? I'd feel better in the morning with less decompression and more sleep. And honestly? I didn't go to bed on time before I had kids.

So what is this about human nature? I'm a morning person and I still can't get into bed on time. So I spend my days dragging around trying to find the energy to play with three wildcats and rueing the lack of sleep I got last night, because in addition to my stupidity one or more babies may have had a bad night and awakened me 3 or 4 times for comforting, and I think to myself that there must be a reason we do this to ourselves? Perhaps the saber toothed tiger was on the prowl in early evening and we needed to be up to watch for it?

In contemplation of the noble tantrum

What is the evolutionary principle behind tantrums? Can you imagine, just imagine, cave mamma Ugg with child #1 standing just outside cave mouth #43 on Cave Mouth Street grinding corn or preparing to go out and gather and little cave kid Ugg Jr throws himself to the ground and pounds his tiny fists and kicks his tiny legs and screams like a bear to get what he wants? Do you suppose she rolls her cavelady eyes and hands it to him? Because I don't. I see cave mamma taking her club out and giving him a good whack.

Imagine, again, Mayan momma standing in the hot sun after harvesting corn (oh I'm not an indigenous tribe specialist get off my back) watching Mayan girl baby screaming to be allowed to play with that last ear of corn, because it had become her toy, and not giving it to Mayan momma immediately upon being asked. Do you think she might be tempting the Mayan god to select her for the heart sacrifice? I think I'd tread a bit more carefully if I were that kid.

And imagine, if you will, prairie settler family Miller just put prairie kid Joseph to bed and he throws a tantrum to the point of barfing on his bedcovers. Do you think that in an era of no washing machines and no multiple sheet sets he was allowed to do this time and time again for no apparent reason and not end up sleeping amidst his barf particles? I think not. I think he'd be washing his own sheets pretty soon in the river with bloody knuckles of his own. I think he'd learn pretty stinking fast not to barf in his bed. His mom wouldn't be running with his barfing self out of the nursery to try to stop the inevitable sheet change one stinking time. I don't think so. Heck, he'd be lucky to have a bed. And if he barfed in mom and pop's bed? I think he'd be hoeing a row of crops before he was 2.

I mean how did tantrums achieve anything until the current parental administration where we overindulge such children? In the last, what, 50 years there's been a sea change from children being a necessary production of help mates for the household to children being our entire reason for the sun coming up in the morning and goodness knows you better not wake/upset/scold/deny/deprive them. So I see how it's evolutionarily useful now. It works like a charm to lay your tiny little body down in the middle of a packed grocery store and go to town with tears and snot because you bet your mom is going to scoop your butt up and get you anything to shut you up so she can finish shopping because this is the one stupid chance she gets all week to get groceries and if she can't now you'll all starve.

Well not this mom. That kid and I will either be standing there annoying the rest of you until he's done with his theatrics or we leave and we starve. I know it looks bad to the other judging eyes and I've been them too, but you know once you're the parent that the difference between a tantrum and a true cry is so obvious to you at some point early on in getting to know this kid that you can not allow yourself to indulge the former. Because that only means more in the future. And those judging eyes? They can go have triplets of their own and then judge me. Well, maybe not even then. Because this is my kid, and for some unexplainable reason tantrums are there in the animal brain, even though I'm pretty sure that our ancestor apes used them to better effect and they should have been extinguished as a useful strategy somewhere around the 1300s, BC, and there is NOTHING. I. CAN. DO. ABOUT. IT. So smile sweetly and move on rubberneckers. Nothing to see here.

Rollin' rollin' rollin'

Why do parents take their kids to places specifically designed for kids to enjoy and then not allow their kids to direct what happens there? Now forgive me, for I am a relatively recent mom, but I am judging parents of children very close in age to mine, so I feel justified. Just hear me out. I am a parent who believes strongly in child driven outings. Sure, I pick the place we go to and hopefully it's safe, easy to herd triplets around and entertaining to us all, but once we're there? If they're not happy, we move on, if they are content, there we stay. This is admittedly difficult with three completely different personalities but so far it's working.

Last week we went to a local children's museum. I brought along the usual diaper bag with all the back ups, including a change of clothes for each kid. I knew that outside the area we were planning on hanging out at had a 'stream' of sorts for the kids to play in. Being an intelligent human being, I could predict that there was a chance we'd end up in said stream. Water and toddlers necessarily means wet kids. Wouldn't you think?

But in the 20 minutes we spent playing in the stream I heard two different parental units admonishing their kids not to splash. You heard me, two unrelated toddlers, a boy and a girl, were expected to play in a stream so carefully as to not wet their clothing. Wait, you bring your very young child with very little self control to a child centered facility with a stream designed so perfectly that it is at their height and has toys for them to use swimming around in it and swirls and swishes around curves and bumps and you want them to play in the water without splashing? Are you missing brain cells? Why did you bring them to the stream where children splash if you didn't want them to splash? Did you forget the spare clothing? Are they going to melt if they get water on their clothes? What is the point people???

As for the schedule driven parents, I suspect they are behind the nature of the gym class I took my triplets to two weeks ago on a test run. Once class began we were given bells to ring to sing a song, 2 minutes later at the end of the song we were to rip these same shiny, never seen before, silvery, jingly bells out of our toddler's fingers and move on to walking around in a circle.Okay. Then we were to run in a circle and then we moved on to somersaults, and then it was time for the parachute and then it was time for on top of the parachute and then it was time for around the parachute and then it was time for the balls and then it was time to give the balls back, and then it was time for the balance beam.....well you get the idea, right? How fun is it for a toddler to get a ball and then have to give it back 2 minutes later? How fun is it to have a parachute come out but only be allowed to run in a circle around it for 2 minutes, then get under it for 2 minutes and then get on top of it for 2 minutes. Come on people! Let's relax a bit. I know the attention span of toddlers isn't great but they want to keep the ball for a little longer.

And today at the zoo, here's a father in the zoo playground with a daughter no older than 2. Yes, we're at a zoo and usually one goes to the zoo to see the animals, but several of us parents had ended up here at the playground. It's a great option for restless kids who have been strapped to a stroller through the zoo, right? It's our first trip to the zoo but I can tell you my kids liked the playground the best. So what if we paid money to come to a playground, the kids are delighted. So there's this other little girl who wants to swing in the swings for a bit. Dad has been half heartedly helping her play all over the playground for 10 minutes that I've observed but here, apparently, he puts his foot down. No, it's apparently time to see the kangaroos. This girl cries and begs and pleads and he just sits down and reads his paper until she gives up and goes to see the kangaroos. I ask you, what harm would it have done to allow her to swing? Why the rush? Wont the kangaroos be there tomorrow? Have you forgotten for whom you came to the zoo in the first place?

So, parents out there, I ask you to lighten up. Sure, take the kids to special places, plan in advance what you hope to accomplish or avoid there, but go with the flow for goodness' sake. If your kid has more than 10 minutes interest in something, isn't that great? Wasn't the point just to entertain them for x number of minutes anyway? Who cares if they get wet, they're kids! Roll with it, and that's an order.