Sleeping in Boots

When Delaney has a missed or even abbreviated nap, it's usually a precursor to a rough afternoon/evening. She had an extremely short nap today due to a bad car-to-crib transition. I stupidly tried to get her boots off before putting her down. In extricating her foot with one hand while I held her with the other arm, I pulled the sock off too and her bare pigs touched my icy cold vinyl ski jacket which caused her to twitch and moan and ultimately wake up and look at me. I spent a good half an hour trying to get her to sleep again but when she picks her head up and smiles at me with an open mouth, I know the sleep boat has sailed.

So we're in for it now and by 4 o'clock I cave in to all sorts of verboten activities to keep her from following me around the house, arms outstretched in full blown whine mode. Sometimes I run from her when she's like this. I know it sounds cruel, but the thing is, when I pick her up when she's in this state of mind, she arches her back and pushes against me so that I almost drop her. I either have to hold her tightly so as not to let go of her or put her down, both of which piss her off royally. It's maddening. She wants comfort but won't be comforted. So we do back to back Baby Einsteins and empty the magical computer drawer (a total nightmare to clean up) and eat too many cookies and drink milk in my lap. But eventually it's all too much and I know I'm just putting off the inevitable.

At 5 o'clock she is the monster again, crying, whining and signing to me for things she thinks she wants but then changes her mind and flings them away. There's this dilemma at 5:00 which was really there at 4:00 too, but I got past it for an hour by giving her cookies and videos. If I put her to bed now, and I know she is acting this way because she is uber-tired, I risk upsetting the whole sleep schedule and she'll be up at 5:00 am tomorrow morning, tired for a nap at 9:00 am and ready for bed again at 5:00 pm. At some point you have to push through it and I'd rather do it now than have the pattern get more established. I know it sounds neurotic, but the sleep schedule is pretty golden in this house give or take an hour. I can put her to bed at 7:00 or even 6:00 but 4 or 5 is going to play games with all of us.

So at 5:00 she is whining and signing that she's hungry (this after the multiple peace-seeking cookies) so I make her a nice grilled cheese and cut up some apples and strawberries and put her in the highchair. She puts maybe a strawberry in her mouth, and then clears the tray with both hands so everything goes flying onto the floor. And I swear she looks at me and raises her eyebrows in a taunting "Did you see that?" look. I pull her out of the chair, and plunk her on the floor, cleaning up the mess while she gamely eats a few of the fallen items.

But soon she starts crying again and I hold her while she signs for a banana. We can make a dinner out of a banana I tell her and cut one up, get a fork because she like to eat them off the fork and stab a piece of banana with it. She flings the fork so the banana goes whizzing past my face and hits the oven, sliding down forlornly. I look at that banana while I feel like that banana. You would think I would learn by now, but no, she makes the eat sign again and I get out some yogurt, leave the crime scene that is the kitchen and sit her in my lap in the living room. And for a few bites she is happily eating yogurt and smiling. Is she toying with me now? Is she thinking "What a dope. What a patsy." Because when my guard is down she flips her hand down on the container and yogurt and spoon splatter over her, over me, over the couch and the rug. My face when this happened must have scared her because I didn't utter a word but she looked at me and howled. I wanted to howl too. I left her there howling while I got a cloth in the kitchen to clean up the mess, and also to take a deep breath. She follows me howling, snotty, covered in yogurt and completely, utterly miserable. I really want to run from her. But I pick her up and and she lays her little yogurt covered head on my shoulder and I slowly decompress. She's just a tired baby. Not a prescient, manipulative beast trying to foil my every move. It's over. I surrender. It's 5:30 now and I've got to get this girl in bed. If we're up at an ungodly hour, then we're up.

I run a quick bath for her and she comes to life again, playing in the bubbles, laughing at my antics. I can have her in bed by 5:45 with little trouble if I can keep this up. An enormous gas bubble escapes her and she giggles at herself. I giggle too because after all, farts are funny. Don't tell Justin. A few minutes later as I'm soaping her hair, like a gator hiding in the swamp I see a flash of brown go by under the bubbles. None of her bath toys are brown. I stand her up in the tub and of course, there is poop everywhere. I have to drain the tub, spray it down, spray her down, re-wash her hair because I'd unknowingly washed it with poop water all the while racing against the clock and the cold air that is in our house due to this uncanny cold spell we've been having. I lost the good mood she had acquired somewhere in that second bath. It ended with her crying, struggling to grab at the poop toys I had placed out of her reach until I could clean them, while I scrambled for the towel to try to keep her warm. My little, tired, poop girl. I stuffed her in some warm jammies, and she collapsed on my shoulder by 6:15. I did make it to the 6:00 hour after all, but I would have sacrificed the hour for a poop free bath. In the future, I will leave the boots on.