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October 1st, 2003 - Wednesday
Choices
Today was an unexpectedly great day. I woke up and it was freezing in here, even with all the windows closed. Hayley was wearing footed pajamas and when I was helping her off the bed after a diaper change, her feet slipped and she fell down hard. Luckily the brunt of the fall was absorbed by her diapered butt, but she still tipped back further and hit her head on the hardwood floor. Gah! She cried but calmed down quickly and never even developed a bump. She has a coconut head, apparently.
Then, as I was having my coffee, it started to pour with rain. It looked really dark out all our windows so I didn't have very high expectations for the day. I'm trying to fit in regular walks with Hayley since winter is swiftly approaching so rain means no walk. That aside though, rainy days also drain my motivation. I get really lazy and want to just curl up on the couch with a blanket and a book (not that I get to do that with a toddler, but you know what I mean).
Around lunch time, the phone rang. We only have caller ID on the living room phone but I was down the hall in the bedroom so I grabbed the computer room phone, assuming it was George. It ended up being the library. I had reserved White Oleander since I've really wanted to read it but it was always out. I didn't expect to receive a call so soon, figuring it would be a couple of weeks. However, it was back today and I had until Saturday morning to pick it up or else it would go back on the shelves.
By about 3 pm it had cleared up and was beautiful out. It was still chilly so I had to dress Hayley pretty warmly but we headed out. I knew that if I left the book for too long that I'd end up forgetting altogether so we walked to the library. She had a great time, pointing at things for me to name ("Dat?" "Street light!" "Dat?" "Car." "Dat?" "Grass.") and rocking from side to side to music that only she could hear.
She was really well behaved in the library even though we didnt really stay long enough for her to get antsy anyway. Then since it was so nice out we walked around the neighborhood for another 45 minutes or so. It was great and it took up a nice chunk of the afternoon where she might have otherwise been bored and cranky.
Now I have a book that I wanted to read, and I had a bit of pleasant exercise while I was at it. It was great, and quite a switch from the way the morning started out.
Tonight I was putting Hayley to sleep and I thought about how sometimes we all have to make choices that we can live with.
Usually Hayley gets a bath at about 8 pm. Then by 8:30, she'll be changed and ready for bed. If the bath made her relax a bit, she goes into bed and usually falls asleep around 9, assuming that no teeth are pushing through her gums, the phone doesn't ring 537 times, and Venus is aligned with Mars. If the bath refreshed her, we let her bounce around to living room to "let out the crazies", I read to her if she's interested, and then I put her to bed at 9, which means she'll fall asleep by 9:30. Most days she wakes up at 7:30 or 8 in the morning. Basically, that means that she gets up roughly 11 hours after she goes down, give or take.
I know that she sleeps for 11 hours. (I should note that it isn't 11 hours of straight sleep - just 11 hours until she's up for the day.)
Tonight, went to do the supper dishes at about 7:30 pm. She followed me into the kitchen and started to whine, then cry. I asked her what was wrong and she immediately started to flash the milk sign at me. Figuring that the dishes aren't as important as my daughter, I picked her up and took her into the living room. I sat at my desk and nursed her while reading a few things. All of a sudden she fell asleep on me. I was stunned.
I picked her up and took her into the bedroom and changed her for bed, forgoing the bath. She was asleep by 7:50 pm. Knowing her sleep tendencies, I know that means that she might be up before 7 tomorrow morning. I am not thrilled about such an early wake-up call at all. I am not convinced that I can function if I get up that early with my self-imposed limit of two coffees per day. However, she was clearly exhausted. She had taken one hour-long nap early in the afternoon and had been up for almost 7 hours by that point. She was cranky. She fell asleep on me. There was no way that I was going to give her a bath and try to keep a tired child up for my own benefit. It would be selfish of me to keep her up too long just because I don't want to get up early in the morning.
And that's what I don't understand about someone I met awhlie back. I was at a party and met a woman who has an 18-month-old daughter. This young girl's bedtime is 11:30 pm or midnight. This bedtime is not because the girl fights sleep off for hours before finally crashing at midnight. This is her normal bedtime. She frequently naps at 7:30 or so, and they wake her up at 8 or 8:15 so that she'll go to bed four hours later. The reason? The mother declared that she likes it because her daughter then sleeps in until at least 10:30 the next morning. When someone else gently suggested that an earlier bedtime might be more appropriate for a child of that age, the mother asked, "Well why would I want her to go to bed earlier? I sure don't want her to get up earlier!"
So I thought about that tonight. I know that I'm probably not going to get enough sleep between tonight and tomorrow and I know that I could probably sleep until 8 if I had kept Hayley up a little later. But what would have been the cost? Would I really want to keep her up when she was so obviously tired just for my own selfish benefit?
No way. I have to make choices for her because she's too young to make them herself. I think it's sad that this other mother can't put aside her own selfish needs and desires to sleep in so that she can do what's best for her daughter.
It's a shame though.
At that same party, this mother asked my friend, the hostess, if she could borrow a playpen for her daughter's 7:30, uh, NAP. My friend set it up nicely in the bedroom and brought her in. The mother took her daughter, a shy child, and unceremoniously plunked her into the playpen, said, "I'm leaving" and walked out. Needless to say, the child cried. She was in a strange house, a strange room, in a playpen rather than her own little bed. She cried and cried. My friend reached over the playpen and patted her gently on the back and said, "shhh, it's okay." Thirty seconds later she was asleep.
Thirty seconds was all it would have taken for the mother to soothe her own child who was afraid of a strange place. Thirty seconds was too long when there was a beer waiting for her downstairs though.
My friend came out of the bedroom and was so distraught that she was cyring a little herself. The selfish mom's own mother was there too and saw my friend so she asked what the tears were about. My friend explained that she was upset about the little girl being left so abruptly to cry. The mother said, "Well she's entitled to raise her child the way she wants." My friend responded with, "And I'm entitled to cry about it."
I don't make a habit of judging people because God knows I hate being judged myself. Like I said, for me it's all about making the choices that I can live with. I'm glad I've made the choices I have thus far. Really glad.
2002: None
2001: In any case only one thing really matters: The turkey.
2000: None
1999: None
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