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Velcrometer
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007  

Snooze Alarmed

As I may have mentioned before, part of the reason for our upstairs remodel last year was to give M. Small a safe area to play without any intervention from us. In theory, once he graduated from his crib, he would be free to move not just around his bedroom, but also across the hall to his new playroom, and as long as we went to bed with a baby gate blocking his access to the stairs and the bathroom door blocking his access to the toilet, he could entertain himself indefinitely.

As of 6:00 yesterday morning, he appears not to have gotten that memo.

We habitually our alarms for around 6:45, which means we normally get up around 7:00 to 7:25. At 6:00, M. Small started calling down the hall for us.

"I'll see if I can get him to take a paci," I muttered to Trash as I stumbled out of bed. But when I got to his room, he already had one in his mouth. That wasn't what he wanted. He was sitting up on his bed, and he told me, "I'm done with my nap."

"You're really not," I assured him, and went back to bed.

He continued yelling, though, until Trash invited him into our bed to "snuggle." What could be better than a family snooze for an hour or so? Well, the problem there is that M. Small is not aware of the difference between "snuggle" and "filibuster."

After about ten minutes of sleep-precluding babbling and wiggling, we kicked him out and sent him off to his playroom. But even then he insisted on attempting to get us out of bed with various high-volume proclamations.

"I need a tissue!" A very canny move, this. He picked up a runny nose on or after our camping trip last weekend, and since then we've been encouraging him to ask us for a tissue when he needs one rather than wiping his face on his bare arm. Now, after days of encouraging this behavior, wouldn't we feel like heels if we just lay in bed and ignored it? The answer: yes, we kind of did, a little bit.

Because she was lying on her good ear at the time, Trash at first thought he was saying "I need to kiss you!" Which is not something he spontaneously says very often unless he's trying to shorten a time-out. "Then come in and kiss us!" she called back. When he didn't show up, I told her what he was actually saying. "That little scammer," she muttered.

"Come help me set up my train track!" Now, the reason we've kept his Thomas toys boxed up for the past three weeks is because of the lead-paint recall, and we've just been keeping the little potential toxin-bombs out of his hands until we get around to going through and seeing if any of the specific items were affected by the recall. But he has no way of knowing this. Right? Right?

I got up long enough to make sure he wasn't sucking all the red off a little wooden stop sign, told him, "Play with this plastic train instead," and went back to bed.

"I need a bedtime snack!" The implication being, of course, that if we just hook him up with a bit of fruit or a cracker or something, he'll go back to bed and leave us in peace. When in fact we all know that the moment one of us blearily presents him with a "snack," he'll ask, "No, I want a pancake" or "How about some sausageges?" He did get a waffle and some sausages, but not until we were damn good and ready.

What does this mean? Is he getting too much sleep? Did he go to bed too early? In fact, he had stayed awake until 10:00 the night before, and was more than satisfied with the eight hours of sleep he'd gotten.

My toddler needs less sleep than I do. I am so screwed.

posted by M. Giant 10:53 AM 6 comments

6 Comments:

My toddler needs less sleep than I do. I am so screwed.

See, that right there should be a new Velcrometer t-shirt design.

By Blogger Febrifuge, at July 11, 2007 at 7:58 PM  

Mine crawls in bed and says right in my ear "dwink? dwink? dwink? . . . " until I cannot stand it anymore. She doesn't do this to Daddy! Ah well, we can sleep when they move out, right?

By Blogger Melinda, The Bad Mommy, at July 12, 2007 at 5:00 AM  

Lord, does this sound familiar. Except, when my 3-year-old son comes in to snuggle, he says things like, "Hey! Mommy's nipples!"

By Anonymous Anonymous, at July 12, 2007 at 7:27 AM  

Have been having a very similar experience but at 4:45 am

By Blogger Nicole Steeves, at July 12, 2007 at 9:37 AM  

I think toddlers who need less sleep than their parents are a common problem. From my own childhood, I can remember lying down with my mother to take a nap because she was tired; I would lie there, wide awake, waiting for her to be done resting. I wish I could go back in time and take all those naps now.

By Blogger kmckee7, at July 12, 2007 at 1:01 PM  

This is why I love other people's children and have a cat. I feel mildly bad about refusing my cat's requests for food at 4:45 am, but not as bad as I would feel if it were a people baby.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at July 14, 2007 at 12:37 PM  

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