Friday, October 1, 2010

Friday Confession- Mommy Fail

I admit-

- that everytime we have a 'nap fail'= it is directly attributable to 'Mommy Fail'. ETA: "Mommy Fail", at least in this house, is not a singular event, but each failure is simply compounded onto all previous failures magnifying each successive failure as larger, heavier and suckier than all previous failures carrying the weight of the compounded failures as a whole.



It's what he does. He's three. And a button pusher. He pushes my buttons and like the energizer bunny.... I go and go and go. So of course- what's going to happen??!?!?  "TRYING" to get him to sleep is the sure way to "KEEP HIM AWAKE". It's a sick cycle. 

I got frustrated, and worse, showed it.

I told him I was leaving the room (cause I didn't want it to get any uglier). I walked out. Closed the door. He cried. "Mommy. Mommy. Please."

It sounds bad. But as I listened (from 3 feet away) it was not a grieving cry. It sounded much the same as his 'recently- learned- how- to- control- and- delay- Mommy- leaving- school- cry'. 

This is a tough parenting question for me and my child. I had to teach this child to cry. Tell him it was OK to cry. Talk about 'when' we cry. 'Why' we cry. Actually 'show' him how!  So when the little bugger turns it on its face and starts to manipulate with it.... I'm not sure if that is progress or bad parenting?

Outside the door- I checked the time. It was getting late. As soon as he is calm and not crying for 3 minutes I'll go in calmly- talk and be done with the entire nap fiasco.

Six minutes in (that was a loooong six minutes! NEVER LET THAT HAPPEN BEFORE!) he grew quiet. Nine minutes in I poked my head in. Sound asleep.

We'll see in the coming days what this really was.
Picture from last week...finally

2 comments:

Gretchen said...

His hair is AWESOME! And remember parenting is a constant trial. Try and try again. What works today, most likely won't work tomorrow. *sigh*

Melissa said...

So I've been reading your blog for a while, but have never left a comment. Thanks for the honesty and confessions. I am recently home with ~2.5 year old, am also single and its nice to see other singles as well, even if its just through the www. As for naptimes, if its any help, I give G two choices, watch Cars on the tv while laying on the couch or go to his bed. He always choses Cars (although sometimes he actually gets carried to his bed first) and usually falls asleep while watching, but even if he doesn't he's rested and its given mommy some down time. just my 2 cents for what it's worth.

Melissa