Last night was one that is unfortunately too frequent of an occurrence. Put the baby to bed, we disagreed, I left, he cried - all typical events on a regular basis. Then when I finally peeled my sorry butt off of the couch at 1am and went up stairs, I hear this little patter come down the hall. Now, mind you, I've just gone into the bathroom - all lights are off in the house, and I'm still expecting him to be in bed. He pops his head into the bathroom (which is really just a fashion of a hall leading to the toilet). Scared the livin hell outta me.
I convinced him to go ahead of me back to bed (he tends to sleep the first few hours in my bed before I sneak drop him into his own if I have enough energy), and he was going so fast he slipped a couple of times. This was slightly amusing until it occurred to me that we really needed to just go to sleep.
This is where the real fun began... I had to convince him ALL OVER AGAIN to crawl into bed. And this time I had better leverage - I was going to be staying there this time. He didn't want to cooperate until I had fully laid down, and as a result was more in the arena of 3/4s asleep. After getting him onto the bed he tossed, turned, talked, kicked, poked, and every other little annoying thing a small devil child can do to his/her mother to be the most annoying thing on the planet. He did this for an hour. An hour!
Finally having had enough I got up, yelled at him to go to sleep - sincerely considered going back downstairs to sleep on the couch, also considered grabbing a blanket and sleeping on the floor in his room...
I wound up walking out of the room for a couple of minutes, decided it was too much energy to go anywhere else but back to bed, and thus turned around and went back. He talked off and on for a few minutes, but nothing bad enough that I couldn't easily fall asleep and stay there. Unfortunately morning comes a lot faster when it's already 2 am, so I've been running on limited sleep.
Then tonight happens... We had a ritual for the Bloodroot Honey Priestess Tribe, it started at 8:15 or so (as they do) and he was an all around good boy through the whole thing. He's been going to ritual with me for the vast majority of his life, so it's nothing new to him. His tiredness and tolerance levels depict how good he's going to be. Today was apparently a good day and set him up well for a long evening.
We left the space about 11p, got gas, and headed on our way home. We asked about how proud I was of him (it's good for both of us if I remind him), and he started commenting on cars as they drove past. When we got onto the freeway he saw an ambulance drive pas, and as he's been on a "fire truck" he called it such. We practiced how to say "ambulance", he gave it a good effort but I heard the lack of enthusiasm - not surprising. He mumbled a few things after that then must've fallen asleep, because not 2 minutes later when we pulled off the freeway he was sound asleep. Asleep enough that he didn't wake up when we got home.
Life is so strange when you have kids. No two days are ever the same. Some days you get a bed to yourself, others you have to share. But every day is filled with love - and it's truly magickal.
