Bedtime!

I know that many parents believe that to put a child to bed one needs to just lay said child down and be firm that he not get out of bed. That works great in theory. It also works great before the child can climb out of his or her crib. It does not, however, work when the child moves up to a "big boy bed"--at least not in my world.

Joseph and Jacob used to be put in their cribs at bed time after a little bit of cuddling. They were always still mostly awake and once laid down would usually go to sleep on their own. However, once they started climbing out of their crib it was always a battle at bedtime. The battle only got worse once they moved to their twin sized beds. At some point Jereme and I decided that we would just cuddle the boys until they fell asleep. So, we lay them down and sing to them until they go to sleep. Obviously, we have parameters that we keep. If one of the boys is fighting sleep they will get in trouble after a certain amount of time has passed...but why make EVERY night a battle? Before we cuddled them until they were asleep, bedtime turned into a two hour battle every night. Everyone was stressed and traumatized, and who sleeps well after something like that? So, bedtime became our special cuddle time, and it's worked for us.

Our schedule has been a little messed up this last week or so because I had a hysterectomy a week ago Thursday. Instead of me cuddling the boys in their beds each night, whichever boy it was my night to cuddle came to my bed until Jereme had the other one asleep. Tonight I felt well enough to actually go back to the old routine, and it was my night to cuddle Joseph. I came upstairs and the boys started getting ready for bed, and I needed to go back downstairs for something. When I came back upstairs again, Joseph was in his bed, and he didn't want to cuddle. After a few minutes I checked on him (in the past he's said he didn't want to cuddle and he was always up and playing after a few minutes) and he was sound asleep! The time has come when Joseph is growing into such a big boy, and I'm going to miss our cuddle time at bedtime so much!

This just seems appropriate...

Year’s End

by Richard Wilbur

Now winter downs the dying of the year,

And night is all a settlement of snow;

From the soft street the rooms of houses show

A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,

Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin

And still allows some stirring down within.

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake

The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell

And held in ice as dancers in a spell

Fluttered all winter long into a lake;

Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,

They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns

Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone

A million years. Great mammoths overthrown

Composedly have made their long sojourns,

Like palaces of patience, in the gray

And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise

But slept the deeper as the ashes rose

And found the people incomplete, and froze

The random hands, the loose unready eyes

Of men expecting yet another sun

To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.

We fray into the future, rarely wrought

Save in the tapestries of afterthought.

More time, more time. Barrages of applause

Come muffled from a buried radio.

The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.

These sudden ends in time...

It's been quite a while since I've had time to sit down with my thoughts. I remember thinking that the boys kept me busy when they were babies, and back then I believed that things would only get easier and less busy as they grew. How wrong I was!

Yes, things are easier...or at least some things are. No, I do not have to change diapers. That was a blessing. When you have two little boys, who are only born eleven months apart, you change a lot of diapers. It was wonderful when they started running to the potty on their own. They feed themselves, and they dress themselves. So, basic day to day needs for the boys are much easier.

However, as some things get easier, others become more challenging. Out of diapers and into trouble; at least that was the way it went with mine. As my boys grow they get busier and busier. I no longer have to leave the house to stay busy--I can do that at home. Chasing kids down off the outside of our twenty foot tall stair banister, cooking, picking up the house repeatedly, laundry, dishes, breaking up fights, etc...my days are busy. Some days I can hardly wait for bedtime because I don't believe I have even half the energy that my boys do each day, and I am truly exhausted.

No matter how exhausted I become, though, nothing will ever be better than when my busy little boy (whichever one it is at the particular time) crawls into my lap and says, "Mama, I love you. I want to cuddle." When the boys let me sit with them on the couch and read, watch TV, whatever, it's so very special.

I used to look forward to the changes that life would bring. I counted the days until my boys would do one thing or another. I have stopped doing that. I no longer wish the days away, and I no longer count time. Richard Wilbur wrote, "These sudden ends in time must give us pause," I am just going to cherish every moment I am given with my sons.

I know that the day will come when Joseph no longer wants me to walk him to the school, let alone hug him in public. I know that someday the boys will stop crawling into my lap. So for now, I hang on to the kisses they give me, the times they sit on my lap, and even the smudges of Doritos on my newly washed sweatshirt.

Tired, busy, sometimes cranky and seemingly unappreciative...but I am extremely blessed.