Last night I left my son's room with him still asleep, and I had the desire to shout from the rooftops "He's asleep! He's asleep!" Surely every one of my friends wanted to know of my great accomplishment: My 23 month old was asleep! (at 10:45 at night).
Now he has been a pretty good sleeper most of his life, but he goes through cycles of being easy to put to bed, and then returns to being hard to put to bed. He is currently in a being hard to put to bed stage, crying every night. Last night he got to sleep with some fussing, only to wake up an hour later from coughing as he was developing a cold. So I went in to calm him down, give him some medicine, and attempt to get him to sleep without more crying. I knew the only way to do that would be to lie down next to his crib until he was asleep. I tried this method just last week when he woke to the fireworks of the Fourth, and after 45 minutes of waiting, my slight rustling of movement made him wake up and cry again anyways.
So last night after being with him for an hour, listening to his breathing, going in and out of sleeping, waking up to the upstairs neighbors, settling back down, checking on me to make sure I was still there, I was very unsure of my skills of being able to actually leave the room without waking him back up. But I did it! And I wanted everyone to know of my great accomplishment!
But then I started thinking about how ungreat of an accomplishment it was. Every person everywhere had to get to sleep every single day. Every parent everywhere had to get their kids to sleep every single day. Whoo hoo for me! I did something that everybody does everyday!
This is how I feel about teeth too. Every new tooth my son got I felt was a badge of honor that was a visible sign to others that we had made it through teething for that tooth! I felt like congrats were in order for each new tooth. I wanted to say "Look! He has this tooth! He made it through, and I made it through, and now he has a tooth! Aren't you proud?"
Of course you're not proud. Every person everywhere has made it through getting teeth. Every parent everywhere has made it through their kids getting teeth. Woo hoo for me. I'm rocking this parent thing, I can get through the things that every other person has to do!
Now he has been a pretty good sleeper most of his life, but he goes through cycles of being easy to put to bed, and then returns to being hard to put to bed. He is currently in a being hard to put to bed stage, crying every night. Last night he got to sleep with some fussing, only to wake up an hour later from coughing as he was developing a cold. So I went in to calm him down, give him some medicine, and attempt to get him to sleep without more crying. I knew the only way to do that would be to lie down next to his crib until he was asleep. I tried this method just last week when he woke to the fireworks of the Fourth, and after 45 minutes of waiting, my slight rustling of movement made him wake up and cry again anyways.
So last night after being with him for an hour, listening to his breathing, going in and out of sleeping, waking up to the upstairs neighbors, settling back down, checking on me to make sure I was still there, I was very unsure of my skills of being able to actually leave the room without waking him back up. But I did it! And I wanted everyone to know of my great accomplishment!
But then I started thinking about how ungreat of an accomplishment it was. Every person everywhere had to get to sleep every single day. Every parent everywhere had to get their kids to sleep every single day. Whoo hoo for me! I did something that everybody does everyday!
This is how I feel about teeth too. Every new tooth my son got I felt was a badge of honor that was a visible sign to others that we had made it through teething for that tooth! I felt like congrats were in order for each new tooth. I wanted to say "Look! He has this tooth! He made it through, and I made it through, and now he has a tooth! Aren't you proud?"
Of course you're not proud. Every person everywhere has made it through getting teeth. Every parent everywhere has made it through their kids getting teeth. Woo hoo for me. I'm rocking this parent thing, I can get through the things that every other person has to do!
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