Toddler At Dawn

Everyone talks about the sleepless nights associated with new parenthood. We almost expect it as an absolute. No one is surprised to see a mother of a newborn with dark circles around her eyes. It is one of the first questions people will ask new parents: "How's the baby sleeping?" What no one tells you, though, is that it doesn't stop once the newborn nights are over.

Actually, when Normy was a baby, he was an AMAZING sleeper. I should have known then it was too good to be true. We established a routine early on. After dinner he got a bath, followed by a rubdown with baby lotion and PJs. Then he enjoyed a little booby accompanied by night-night music. We played Moby's album 18 EVERY NIGHT. Usually by the end of track 3 he had fallen asleep, I'd lay him in his crib in the room we all shared, and that was it until 7 am. It never failed.

It wasn't until we moved to Omaha that things changed. We kept up the routine, except we exchanged the booby/Moby combo for storybooks. However, it wasn't long after he self-weaned (14 or 15 months) that his penchant for early rising started to present itself. He would wake up ready to play at 6 am, at 5 am, at 4:30 in the morning! There was no convincing him it was still time for sleep...he was up and at 'em! This is also the time he started watching PBS kids shows. Because, really that's all I could do at 5 am. I'd change his diaper, get him some milk, and plug him in while I'd lie next to him on the couch and swim in and out of consciousness with the obnoxious sounds of Boohbah filling my ears. You thought Teletubbies was bad; Boohbah takes that concept to a whole new level of brain-dead.

These days, things aren't much better. Though now I have been broken in, and as long as Normy doesn't get up before 5:30, I'm OK. Really, if given the chance to sleep past 7 o'clock, I just can't do it. It's official: I have become an early riser. Things are a little better, in that Normy has officially started sleeping in a big-boy bed. I’m not sure what prompted it, but sometime after returning from our trip to Ripley, he figured out that the queen sized bed in the room that he and Georgia are sharing is far more comfortable than the pack n' play he'd been sleeping in since we left Wheaton. We tried to convince him of that the first night we spent in a hotel on our house-hunting trip in Omaha at the start of June, but he'd have none of it. Turn's out he's related to me (as stubborn as a mule) and had to discover it on his own. I'm sure it won't be the last time.

Georgia, of course, is a whole different story. But, she is still very much on-the-breast at 17 months, so that is the crutch I use to get her to do what I want. You know: stop screaming; distract her from something or get her to sleep. (I know, I'm creating a monster.) But, at 4 am when she decides it's time to play, I simply throw her in bed in between Smoochy and I encourage her to become milk-drunk at which point she usually changes her mind about it being morning and goes back to sleep.

Anyway, at 5 am this morning, I heard Normy climb out of bed and make his way into the living room, where I had been sleeping on the couch as to not disturb my husband with post-nasal restlessness. I started imaging how much fun pay-backs were going to be in 13 years when I get to wake him up at the butt-crack of dawn to catch the bus to 9th grade... When it occurred to me that there was a whole other round of sleepless nights waiting for me. And these sleepless nights won't be nearly as endearing as being awoke to the sweet-sound of a toddler's voice an inch from my face saying: "Awake Mama!"



It will be sleepless nights tossing and turning with worry because my middle school student is in the midst of some adolescent pain. Or lost sleep due to staying up late to welcome my high school-aged kid home with a hug. (Obviously, this is as much as a sniff-test as a hug). Or worse, staying up WAY LATE when that same kid misses curfew... good lord. Do I have the inner reserves for so much missed sleep? This must be why the elderly take so many naps. They are recovering from these torturous years as a sleep-deprived parent.

I guess the bottom line, is that it's all worth it in the end. Mornings are the time of baby’s sweetest smiles and a toddler's quiet playfulness. And those early mornings will be the time for waking up hung-over teenagers and making them do yard work. Oh the joys!

But, for now, Sleepless nights still often make for beautiful mornings.