Converting to a toddler bed also converted Momma into a toddler

 

This is some seriously exciting stuff!

  

Tools!

It took me four hours to get Hollis to take a nap and in that four hours, which I depict above in photographs as nothing short of painfully cute and adorable, I was reduced to a yelling, temper-tantrum-throwing, hair-pulling lunatic.  I found myself on a merry-go-round of emotions where a petulant, exhausted, and frustrated toddler took turns ebbing and flowing in and out of my emotional frame of mind with an educated, sedate, patient woman.  

What a surprise it was to discover that not only was there a 3-foot toddler in the room, but there was also a 5'5" toddler there as well: Me.

This whole thing started because potty-training is going swimmingly.  We spend the mornings pantsless, diaper-up to leave the house and for naps, go pantsless for the evening, then get re-diapered for sleep.  Lots of peeing and pooping in the potty going on around here and it's been ridiculously easy, and, dare I say, fun.  I mean, clapping my hands and doing a little jig because there's a giant toddler turd in the potty evokes something primordially excited in me.

Occasionally, he would call for me to come get him out of his crib and I didn't hear him or couldn't come right away and I'd find that he'd peed or pooped in his diaper - sorta counter-productive with the whole potty-training thing.  Also, he's been climbing out of (and into) his crib a bunch this week.  Therefore, the conversion from crib to toddler bed felt spot on.

Anthony converted it in the morning and Hollis clamored all over it, squealing in delight.  He bounced on the mattress and touched all the tools as Daddy talked about how exciting it was to have a "big boy" bed.  I talked about how once he was put in it he had to stay in it, "Just like Mommy and Daddy do in theirs."  He nodded and clapped his hands and was, what I thought, very sophisticated about it all.

Oh, how wrong I was!  

And it's not a reflection on Hollis, on the contrary, it's a reflection on me and my wildly out of line expectations.  Did I really think I'd be able to baby-whisper him into a bed the first go around?  I read a couple of books to him in the rocker and tucked him in.  I even dragged his book box next to the bed so he wouldn't have to "get up" to get more.

An extremely exciting book (and a glowing Bus-Owl on the dresser).

(Hours since nap time started: 1/2)

 (Hours since nap time started: 1/2)

 

Note the book box beside the bed (yeah, not a very good idea).

(Hours since nap time started: 1/2)

In the end, he did eventually sleep, but not before I'd completely embarrassed myself.  When I was shouting at him, then apologizing for being cranky, he would just look at me as if to say, "I know how that feels," and then smile gently at me.  I lost all sense of control, of who I was as a parent.  

In the first hour, I felt good: full of energy and ambition.  Hour Two was a little less romantic and I was reduced to "if this/then that" statements.  I struggled mightily with age-appropriate/consequence-appropriate statements, such as, "Hollis, here are the rules.  You can only ever have your blankie and paci IN the bed, not out of it, so if you get out of your bed, you have to leave them here [in the bed]," or "If you touch Bus-Owl, I will turn Bus-Owl off," and "If you open and close the door again, I will take the blankie away for a while."

And then I found myself saying ridiculous things like, "If you get into this drawer again, I will have Daddy change the bed back to a crib."  Yeah - I said that last one in a fit of desperation and hated ever syllable that came out of my mouth.

 (Hours since nap time started: 2 3/4)

 (Hours since nap time started: 3)

Yeah... just wasn't working out.

(Hours since nap time started: 3 1/4)

I threaded all this negativity with lots of encouraging statements like, "I know you can do this!  This is so exciting!" and "I know this is such a great thing!  I'm so excited for you!  I know you're just bursting at the seems!"  I knew how big this was for him.  I knew it was practically like moving to a different country or sticking his hand into [insert gross/dangerous thing here].  I have a feeling that me asking him to fall asleep within the normal amount of time (30 minutes or so) was tantamount to someone asking me to not go shopping immediately after cashing a winning Lotto check.

But ask I did, and answer me he did.  And perfectly.

By the third and fourth hours I was just hanging by a thread.  I thought my face was going to split open and an alien pop out of my face.

In the end he did sleep.  I think I was equally as exhausted as he was.  My back was killing me again, I didn't get to work out (because of the nap time drama), and I felt like the biggest shit on the planet for wantonly expressing every emotion I had to a 2 1/2 year old.  

  So now he's tucked in, but the curtain is pulled back like a canopy.

(Hours since nap time started: 3 1/2)

 

Who needs a dark room in which to nap??

(Hours since nap time started: 4)

Later that night I literally hissed at Anthony about something and slammed a couple more doors and locked myself in the closet to contemplate my navel.  I don't like feeling like I didn't do my best.  Likewise, I don't like feeling my best wasn't good enough. 

The next day, however, was grand and so was today.  It's as if our ugly interlude never happened and the crib never existed - which, of course, makes me feel worse for even losing my shit like that in the first place since I should have trusted my little guy and his mysterious ways - and we have always slept in beds and napped with freedom to run about the cabin.

A couple of days past all of this and I can now admit that I was under duress due to pain and my own fatigue and that I was seeking order and control from a toddler with entirely different ideas.  Hollis had his own plans for the day and Mommy's fragile ego and self-control be damned, he was going to execute them with delight (and right he should).  His abandon upset my order.  Plain and simple.  I'm really going to have to work at integrating his enthusiasm and energy into my own plans, otherwise I'm looking at a lifetime of shitty days.

Next up, remembering all of this the next time I get tangled up in my desire to control things and lose my shit like a crazy lady under a bridge.

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