Bedtime Woes

Do you see this face? Can you blame me for not being able to get mad at him for most of his life? Recently he has become quite the handful so I really don't have a problem telling him no or putting him in time out, but when he gives me this look ^^^ I turn to mush.

Anyway, what this post is really about is how big of a pain in the rear it is to put my kids to bed. It has, literally, become a 2-hour ordeal. You see, a couple weeks ago the adorable child pictured above learned how to climb out of his crib. That's when all the trouble started. He would climb out, sneak his cute little patootie out into the living room, and give us the most adorable, mischievous smile. We had to try really hard not to laugh as we got up and put him back in bed. (two weeks later, and it isn't so funny anymore) Then daylight savings happened and all hell broke loose. Not only were the kids not falling asleep until 9:00-10:00 at night, they started waking up at 5 freaking 30 in the morning! Really, guys? A one hour time change made you go from sleeping til 8:00 to waking up at 5:30? I'm not really getting the logic in that. Needless to say, we have all been rays of sunshine for the past week and a half.

Parents complain about bedtime being a little bit of hell on earth all the time. This is not an uncommon thing that our family is experiencing. Why oh why don't children like to sleep?  It's so ironic to me that kids treat going to bed at night and taking naps during the day like Chinese water torture while us adults would sell our kidneys to be able to do that. I guess it's the "you always want what you can't have" phenomenon.

I'm trying a new strategy tonight. As I type these words, I am sitting in my boys' bedroom waiting for them to fall asleep. Unfortunately, I didn't plan ahead and bring a pillow to sit on, and my butt is already getting sore. We shall see how this new plan of attack works out. It's times like these that make me wonder why it is that I was so anxious to reproduce. I don't even remember what it was like to have a nice, quiet evening doing whatever the heck I wanted, then drifting quietly off to sleep without being woken up in the middle of the night. Those were the days. I'm sure in a few years, I will be wishing my teenage boys didn't want to sleep so much, and that they would just get their lazy butts out of bed at a reasonable hour. It's ok, though, because everything comes full circle, and I will get to laugh at them as they complain to me about how their children won't sleep. Just like my mom does to me now...