I love my kids. Really, I do. But last night was...well, it wasn't great. Now, knowing that I have a 5 month old, you might suppose that the source of my horrible, restive night was due to teething, maybe, or just general fussiness. Nuh-uh. My 4 year old was the culprit.
As many Mommies can attest, the sweet age of four begins a time when a child's fears and insecurities really begin to blossom. Oh, not to mention the fact that my son has had a chance for his incredibly active imagination to play out all types of scenarios, no matter how plausible or far-fetched they may seem. At some point after his bedtime, he became consumed with the "There's a monster under my bed" theme. And this went on all....night..... Despite my continued efforts to reassure him that no monsters were to be found under the bed and that NOTHING was making a funny noise in his room, he remained insistent that the baddies were waiting for him to close his eyes just for an instant.
After I had returned my son to his bed for the third time, I had just about reached my breaking point. See, I'm the type of person that has to have some amount of sleep. I'm not one of the perky ones that can function on just an hour or two and awake rested and happy. My husband will tell you that. Speaking of the husband, his alarm was set for 3:40am so that he could arrive at his job by 5am. Yeeeeeah...Sleep and I have this love/hate relationship going on, kinda as in I love sleep, but it hates me.
So, this morning I wake up the boy to get him ready for school. He looks up at me and says, "Huh. Guess there really is nothing under my bed. How do you like that?" No, son, you don't really want me to answer that. Perhaps he will recall this statement tonight. But wait...silly Mommy...everyone knows that the monsters only come out at night! If they decide to torment my son again tonight, I'll be right there to rescue him...again. After all, isn't that what Mommies do?
I know this is going to come as a shock, but I've had these moments with Her Majesty. It sparked a lively debate on FB where people seemed to fall into two camps. First, there were the "Absolute truth" parents who insisted that you deny the existence of monsters. Then, there were the "Tell 'em anything to shut 'em up" parents who came up with spray bottles of water, etc.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think there are monsters out there in the world--most of them happen to be other human beings--so I didn't adhere to the first group. The second group went too far for me, too. I'm not going to mist water in the room and say, "Go away, monsters, go away" in a fairy voice.
Nope, I chose something in the middle. I said, "I don't allow monsters in my house, and you are going to keep your happy self in this bed." There were a few spankings involved, and I did put up a gate in her doorway to keep her from wandering around the house at night. Of course, we went through the monster phase at 3.
Other than that, I have no ideas other than to run his happy self ragged before bedtime. I just don't always have the energy to follow my own advice. This, too, shall pass. Eventually.