sounds familiar

Hi new week, the blog welcomes you.

I’ve written a couple times here recently about the escalation of our bedtime situation with Keaton.  To recap for those who can’t be bothered to look here or here, since sometime in December last year she’s really been fighting us at bedtime.

At first it was the whole, “One more story; one more kiss; one more hug; one more one more one more…” bit.  But things had also been steadily escalating, turning from fairly innocent (yet bothersome) delays into full-scale fits and tantrums.  Last week it was to the point where every bedtime was fraught with knockdown-dragout displays on her part: screaming, crying, banging on walls, you name it.  During the peak two weeks ago, these outbursts would last well over an hour before the poor thing gave up and crawled into bed in an exhausted, frustrated defeat.

For us, it made those early hours of nighttime a time to dread.  We both felt bad for how worked up she’d be, yet we were both pretty angry at how ridiculous she was acting.  That “only kids can make you feel this way” mixture of anger and sympathy is sure an uncomfortable fence to be waffling on – one minute wanting to storm in in anger and the other feeling bad she’s having such a hard time.  But one thing was for sure, it was wearing on us all – Keaton perhaps more than we even realized.

Looking back, I told Sharaun we probably should’ve been a bit more cognizant of the fact that the whole  “bedtime/sleep” thing had become quite consuming to our little girl.  In fact, when I mentioned to Sharaun how often I’d played “time to go to bed” with her, or heard her putting her dolls to sleep (under threat of locked doors) – she also realized she’d played along with or seen Keaton playing “bedtime” quite a bit.  I told Sharaun we probably shoudl’ve recognized how much the idea had taken over her imaginary play situations… maybe should’ve seen how much she was thinking about it and realized it must be fairly foremost in her mind.

But hey, I’ve never been a parent before… so I cut myself a little slack.

And, as parents, Sharaun and I figured we better sit down and think out a new approach.  Having seen things steadily grow worse over the last month, we worried that unless we made changes and turned the tide now, it might get even worse (which, honestly, was hard to imagine).  Discussing with our friends (and fellow parents of a three year-old) one night, we laid out our situation and frustrations.  They mentioned that their boy liked to sleep with the door open, and we all wondered together whether or not something like that would work for Keaton.  Being ready to try just about anything, we decided we’d give it a go for a week.

So, a week ago today I setup the new method before bedtime, “OK Keaton, tonight we get to try something special for bedtime!  Mommy and I think you’re such a big girl that you deserve to go to sleep with your door open, just like big girls do.  That means that, after our prayer and story and songs, I’ll give you a kiss and leave your door open when I leave.  If you want to listen to Mommy and Daddy you can, but you need to stay in bed like a big girl.  And, like a big girl, you won’t cry.  You can think of happy things like your friends, or the Backyardigans, or the park, but you need to stay in bed.  Doesn’t that sound good?  Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you for being a big girl like this.”  Yeah, I laid it on nice and thick.

Believe it or not, it worked 100% perfect all week long.  She stays in her room (sometimes with one weak attempt at coming down the hall, which is easily corrected), doesn’t cry, doesn’t scream, doesn’t get all worked up.  She simply rolls over and goes to sleep.  And, for a week now we’ve had nary an issue; it’s been like a miracle turnaround, a bedtime exorcism.  Given the omniscience of hindsight, I wrote to my mom the other day that I think the whole thing might have been one big exercise in a toddler’s desire for control.  In other words, it was Keaton being a control freak; let me explain:

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll remember that, quite a while back, we had started locking Keaton’s door from the outside (yes, despite making us feel just a little “wicked stepmother” -ish).  At first, the lock worked – and seemed like a decent idea.  Keaton would get out of bed, try the locked door, offer a weak protest, and climb right back in to go to sleep.  Sharaun and I thought we’d found a good solution for our wanderer.  As a matter of fact, after a while we even ditched the lock because she appeared to have learned that getting out was futile.  But, as the whole thing got worse over the last month we’d moved once again to using it.

Looking back I think this was our mistake, and it was one with long-to-develop consequences for us and Keaton.  My theory now is that, being three (and perhaps also having something to do with being a little girl), Keaton has reached a point where she likes to feel like she has authority or control over things.  As a kid who’s parents praise her developing autonomy: being able to put on her own clothes, go to the bathroom unaided, etc., I can easily see how she’d place value on being able to exert her will.  And the lock, well that’s just a dead-end street to her free will.  There’s no degree of control on her part, she’s simply stuck in her room with no options.

Think now about an open door and the “big girl” trust involved:  Just knowing she could leave the room if she wanted to… just knowing she’s able to get out, even though she’s not supposed to and it’ll make Mom and Dad upset… just the simple fact that it’s in her hands and not ours.  In fact, we’re leaving the option of good behavior up to her at that point – she’s completely in control of her bedtime fate.  I suppose, if you want to take it to extremes, you could say a lock on the door comes with an assumption of misbehavior or presumed breaking of the rules. I doubt Keaton’s brain evaluates things on that level… but…

Truth in the psychobabble or not, the new “big girl style” bedtimes have been working like a charm.  We’re hoping for another week of good sleep, followed by another, and taken to a point where we can finally call this bedtime beast tamed.

May the good Lord be with us, eh?  Eh.

Goodnight folks, have a good Monday.

Thursday.  Trash is out at the curb and I’m just poking around the internet.  Here goes.

A true-life conversation betwixt my daughter and I, circa a week or so ago:

Enter Dave, father to almost-three-year-old Keaton, fresh out of work and walking through the door.  Keaton looks up from her playing and runs to greet him with a hug.

Dave:  “Hi Keaton!  How are you?”

Keaton: “Good!”

Dave: “How was your day?”

Keaton: “Good.  I played.”

Dave: “You played?  Wow!  That sounds fun!  Did you go to the kids club at the gym?”

Keaton: “Yeah I did!”

Dave: “Did you play with the other kids?”

Keaton: “Yeah, I did…. but… they were mean!”

Dave: “They were mean?!  What did they do?”

Keaton: “Umm… I took their toys!”

Dave: “You took their toys?”

Keaton: “Yeah!”

Dave: “Sounds like they were sad, and you were mean!”

Keaton: “No.  They were mean.”

Dave: “Yeah… wonder why….”

Ha!  Goodnight.

Tonight (Sunday as I write).

Sitting down to dinner, altho it’s a misnomer of sorts this time as Sharaun has decided to do breakfast for dinner.

Sometimes I think I’m the only person on Earth who doesn’t particularly care for breakfast for dinner.  I think it’s because breakfast food tends to skew sweet (especially when my wife’s at the stove), and I’m just not a sweet person.  But even for eggs and sausage and potatoes and the other lovely breakfast like, I just prefer to have it at the temporally-appointed time.  I know, it’s arbitrary…

I’m done with my eggs and sausage and waffle (light syrup, turkey masquerading as hog, and no cheddar in the scramble… the wife is on some New Year’s calorie-kick and I’m along for the ride or on my own for eats – so squarely the former).  We sit and chat, the three of us.  We’ve just returned from an “open house” kinda thing at the nearby home of some folks from our church; some Sunday evening “connections” thing.  Was fun.  We talk about it and then…

“Mommy, I peed.”

“What?”

“I peed.”

I hear the trickle turn into splats on the tile below her highchair (she still eats in it because it’s just easier on us for her to have her own little appointed spot; I expect the “big girl” in her to one day soon revolt). To look at her face you’d have no idea.  She continues to eat, presumably done peeing or simply multi-tasking.  The drip-drip-drip slows and I can see the lights above our dining room table reflected in puddle on the floor below.

Fire drill.

Accidents don’t happen that often anymore, but they don’t not happen at all, so I’m still forgiving of the learning process.  The response team jumps into action: Sharaun grabs the girl and lifts her so her pants drain – it’s gonna be on the floor and chair anyway.  When she’s dripped-out, she’s removed from the scene and I swoop in for my part.  Removing the pad she sits on, I fold it in half and try to keep as much from dripping as I can before moving it outside. I follow with the highchair itself.

Outside is key; I put the chair in the grass in the dark.  Turn on the hose (it’s cold out here and I’m still in my socks) and give the thing a good spraying.  The pad goes back to Sharaun who’s already got Keaton stripped and in the tub.  Clothes and pad go into the washing machine.  Back in the kitchen I sacrifice a clean dishtowel to sop up the mess.  Once cleaned, pull the Lysol wipes from under the sink (thank you my Lord and Saviour above for Lysol wipes – your creation continues to amaze me).  Three or four passes later I’m satisfied that the general area is clean.

The wet dish towel goes into the wash and I hit the button. I dry off the highchair and pull it back inside.  Keaton’s playing now, Sharaun already got her clean – she’s making “Chichen Itza Pizza,” ala Backyardigans (don’t it eat if she offers though, it’s really just the pink washcloth with some invisible/pretend pepperoni on there).  I finish off the dishes, kick off the dishwasher, and wipe down the table and counters.

All told, we’re back to normal with, at most, a 10min delay.  Pretty good, if I do say so myself.  All those drills we ran before kids really paid off.  Pee at dinner in the highchair: Not a worry, we got it locked.

Goodnight.