After trying for two hours to get Mierae to go to bed (and she'd been crying 30 minutes before bedtime about how tired she was), I went into her room again to try to settle her down. After verifying that it was getting dark and truly time to go to sleep, she asked me THE question, the question I asked for most of my childhood, using the excuse that I wanted to stay up to watch the news....
"Mom, how come kids have to go to bed and parents get to stay up?"
The first thing that came to my mind was, "That's a very good question Mierae!" I couldn't help but laugh.
My first response was that kids need more sleep than parents. She tried to count 12 hours on 10 fingers. I told her to add two toes.
Eric's response had a little more emotion behind it, "We're tired of watching you!" And we attempted to explain the foreign concept that sometimes parents need time without their kids to stay sane.
Then came THE statement....
"Mom, I'm hungry."
After Eric had gone to bed and Mierae finally fell asleep on the couch, Jolie fell off her bed.
At least neither of them wanted to watch the news.
6 comments:
Oh my goodness! I totally remember asking my mom that question too! Now I prefer Eric's answer... :)
LOVE the new pic at the top of your blog! You guys look so cute!
Ha ha, I get the "I'm hungry" every night. At least my kids usually stay in their beds now. :)
Haha, that is such a cute story!
Man! I'm sorry they have such a hard time sleeping! I used to be able to do without my sleep, but now I just can't. I don't know how you survive!
So sorry you're still having sleep issues! I can relate. I fight with Allie often over bedtime. One thing I have found that helps (not always, but sometimes) with Allie is to make compromises. She can keep the light on, but she has to stay in her room without crying or coming out. If she can do that, she earns a treat in the morning.
I know that most nights she still stays up much later than she should, and I am constantly waking her up in the morning to get ready for preschool, but I have learned to be okay with that. I can provide her with the opportunity to sleep (and a little motivation), but I can't MAKE her go to sleep. I wish I could.
Good luck! Hang in there! They'll figure it out someday, right?
That's so funny! All kids ask that question. I told Josh that it's important for mommies and daddies to stay up a little to be able to do things that we can't do when they're awake. He asked what? and I told him, clean, write letters, do blogs, stuff like that.
Then came the day after a 'date night' and he saw there was a different movie in the player and found a tell-tale wrapper on the floor and he confronted me with the offending items and asked why he couldn't do it, too, so I explained to him about date night and how it's important for us to do that on Fridays. He was ok with that, too. Weird kid. :)
Makes me tired just reading about kids not sleeping. I should go to sleep now so that when mine wake up multiple times in the night I'm not as cranky...
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