Go the #%&* to Sleep

Last night was a low point. We got one crying child to sleep only to suffer through the wails of the other. Layla fussed and cried for a good three hours before finally giving in to sleep around 8 pm. A few minutes later, we put Mazin to bed and enforced our new go-to-sleep-without-a-parent-lying-next-to-you rule. It was ugly. He cried, fake at first, but then real, and this quickly progressed to wild screaming--the kind that will most certainly pierce the screen of the white noise machine and wake a colicky baby. So what to do? Give in to the screaming in order to keep the baby asleep, thus setting yourself back several weeks in your attempts to establish a new bedtime protocol for the three-year-old? Or let the three-year-old wind himself down and deal with a furious six-week-old who is beside herself with fatigue? We chose the former. Or rather, John did. I just sat in the chair reading the same lines of my book over and over while he went up to comfort Mazin. I felt frozen, defeated. The worst part was that I didn't feel much sympathy for Mazin as I listened to him wail. I wanted to wail myself. We were all wailing, each in our own way. I felt like he was manipulating us, and that his demands were simply unreasonable.

I think with one child, it was possible to respond to all of his wishes and desires--to bend my will to his own--without becoming completely defeated myself. But with two, that's just not possible. I feel I have to draw a line between what I can and cannot do. I must prioritize my own needs at times. Not very often, mind you... perhaps only at the very end of the day, at 8 o'clock at night, when I just need some time to myself, and no, I don't wish to lie down with you in your bed until you fall asleep, my dear three year old. Here, have some stuffed animals. Have twenty of them. How about some lullaby music? Want the light on in your room? In the hall? Hell, how about the whole house? I'll light up the night sky for you if it will help you go to sleep by yourself.