Last night Toddler Harbat had a tough time getting to sleep. I read her stories, then we snuggled until she was just about asleep.
“Send Mama in.”
This is a standard ploy, even if Mama has already spent half an hour reading to her. So Mama goes in and spends another half hour. As soon as she leaves, tears and cries of abandonment fill the house. I offer to go in, she offers to go in, multiple trips are made, and the evening runs on. By the fourth cry I marched in and told her she needed to go to bed, full stop. I left her bedroom door half open thinking I could beat the system: she couldn’t complain that it wasn’t closed or wasn’t open.
Five steps down the hall I hear this: “I want it ALL the way open!!”
I stomp back in and tell her she’s gotten everything she wanted all evening and now it was her turn to go to bed. No more tears, no crying, no NOTHING! This time I shoved the door “all the way” open and puff and growl my way back down the hall. I’m just shutting the hall door when I hear a small sniffly voice.
“My feelings are a little bit hurt.” Ouch. That’s the one thing that got me back into her room. Hugs, apologies for raising my voice, none of it made me feel any better.
Sometimes as a parent you can do things 99% right but that 1% is the only thing that gets any attention. Rest assured, the 99% is making a difference. This morning TH gave me a big hug and said, “I love you so much,” and all the hubbub from last night was forgotten and forgiven.
Writer, architect, father, husband.
While I don’t have any children yet I can definitely see how difficult, and at the same time, rewarding parenthood is. It sounds like all was well in the end.
Oh, all is well. She’ll remember the snuggies, stories and caring, not that you snapped about leaving the door open. How quickly they forget the bad stuff.—you do, right??