Revenge of the Big Girl Beds

Say, "Awkward!"

In order to enact some small revenge, I am illustrating this post with the worst of the worst outtakes from the girls' photo shoot for our holiday cards.  Don't judge me just yet- when they were newborns M would punish them for puking on cute clothes by putting them in the ugliest clothes that we owned.  So, now my goofy pictures don't seem so mean, do they?
 
As you may recall, we recently made the switch to "Big Girl Beds" with a little... well.. pain and suffering.  Grandmommy, rock star that she is, got us these bed rails.  They make it VERY DIFFICULT to accidentally roll out of the bed.

That was helpful.  For a while.  But there is no irresistible force that can match an mischievous toddler.

An odd thing began to happen.  During the routine fourth or fifth round of, "Get Back Into Bed Now Or I'll Do Something You Won't Like,"DD began magically appearing in SI's bed.  This didn't particularly bother me.  In fact, I had considered SI the greater threat to naptime or bedtime harmony- after all, SI would wait until DD was almost asleep, and then begin shouting at top volume, "Debba!  Wake up!"

But no, this concerted effort to stop her sister from sleeping was not the worst to come.

In recent days, naptime has devolved into seemingly endless hours of constant screaming. So how on earth has this happened?  What could have transpired to utterly ruin my afternoons?

Allow me to illustrate.

Imagine that you've put your kids to bed for a nap.  You have cleverly parked yourself in the rocking chair in the corner of their room, so they can't get up.  At all.  No goofy antics.  No giggling.  No shouting.  Nothing.  Just peaceful drowsiness and then blessed, blessed unconsciousness.

Or so it seems.

The moment you leave the room, everything changes.

DD pops her eyes open, and begins her evildoing.

She slowly, silently, creeps from her bed.  Ever so carefully, she sneaks into SI's bed.  And with as much force as her little toddler arms can muster, she pushes SI OVER THE RAIL and out of the bed.  SI hits the floor with an astounding thud, and DD lays her head on her sisters pillow to go to sleep.

SI, naturally, wails in misery and horror.  Her nap has been interrupted a mere half hour into its course, and VERY rudely.  I of course rush into the room to mete out comfort and punishment, and then things get a little... out of hand.

DD wails at being forced back into her own bed.  SI wails about her injury, repeating "Debba push me!  Debbah push me!" until too exhausted to proceed.  At that point, DD begins wailing again, anxious to get attention for her own misery now that SI is evidently "cured."

SI, without fail, allows me to place her back into her bed in order to comfort DD, who of course has no real memory of the cause of her current angst.  And once DD is peaceful, quiet, and sleepy... I attempt to leave the room.

Up to this point, SI is decidedly the victim.  DD is the bad guy.  Pretty clear.

At this point, however, the roles change.  I become the victim, and SI becomes my cruel tormentor.  I am no longer allowed to leave the room.  I am no longer allowed to simply sit.  I must hold her, rock her, soothe her, until... when?  She certainly refuses to sleep again, but she's so tired she can't do anything but.  So I spend the next as-long-as-I-can-stand-it rocking SI while DD peers at me gloomily, occasionally whimpering or crying which sets SI off again as well.  Any attempt to even stroke DD's hair while rocking SI results in SI screaming bloody murder.

When my need to do ANYTHING ELSE becomes too strong, I place SI back in the bed, and retreat.

For as long as I can stand the blood curdling shrieks coming from both of my children.  And it begins again.

For two hours or so.  Or as long as it takes to erase all memory I might have had of a life before the screaming began.

I think I've managed to make it pretty clear to DD that it is NOT okay to push SI out of her bed.  But I just can't get it through SI's head that holding me hostage when she just needs to close her damned eyes and be still is in her best interest.

You win this time, Big Girl Beds.  But I'll have the last laugh.

Eventually.

I hope.



...dear lord, I hope.