Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Two of us want to sleep; two of us do not

We had a fun time playing outside after work tonight. The neighborhood kids were out and we threw footballs and basketballs and rode bicycles and played with sidewalk chalk and bubbles. Jake helped me grill some chili lime chicken burgers from Trader Joes (not bad) and then we relaxed on the couch to check up on our good friends Woody and Buzz. Jake leaned over and put his head on my shoulder and said "I love you daddy." Sadie was snuggled up on Ali's lap. We should have known things were too good to last.

I put Jake down to bed a few minutes after his 8pm bedtime. We read stories, and he seemed fine. But 10 minutes after I turned out the light we heard him calling for us. Ali went up to check on him and I took over walking Sadie around to get her to fall asleep. Upstairs, I heard a wide-awake Jake talking up a storm while Ali explained to him that it was bedtime. Downstairs, Sadie wasn't the least bit interested in sleep either.

Ali tried to put him down again, but he started screaming as soon as she left the room. We traded places and I went up to try again with him. Normally, Jake goes right down to bed after 10 minutes of stories, and we don't hear from him until morning. So, I thought maybe if I just ran through the process again, it would work this time. Nope. We even talked about all the other kids in the neighborhood:

"Where's Danny, Jake?"
"Night-nights."
"And where's "Liney?"
"Night-nights."
"So don't you think it's time for Jake to go night-nights?"
"No! Downstairs!"

I decided to turn out the lights and put him to bed again, knowing he'd let us know what he thought about that. And he did. Twenty-five minutes of blood-curdling screaming later, he finally passed out. Of course, when your kid is screaming (especially when it doesn't happen very often), every minute feels more like an hour. Meanwhile, Sadie was still refusing sleep, which leads me to believe that they must have planned this night together when we weren't paying attention.

I think everyone besides me is finally asleep now. And that's probably where I should be too.

Goodnight.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of that night long ago when jake's Uncle Paul fell asleep, after a loooonnnng time crying, standing up in his crib. I'll never forget that night..... It's hard to listen to the crying, we know. Hopefully all is calm tonight:)