A little Jamesy

Y’all. Since Monday, my son has let me sleep through the night, with only one short hiccup. You don’t know how huge of a deal this is. He has gotten up several times in the middle of the night since he was about 18 months old. I’m sure you’ve all heard me mention this a time or two. Anyway, it was KILLING Scott and me. It was just pure hell if you want to know the truth.

I’d FINALLY gotten to the point where, short of physically harming the child, I would have done a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g to sleep through the night. I decided that over the Thanksgiving weekend I would emulate Supernanny and just keep putting him back in bed, while ignoring him and saying nothing to him. Oh, it was horrible. The first night we were up for about an hour and a half. Scott had been up with James the night before so I told him to go to Clara’s room and get some sleep. James and I went over and over and over the same thing….

Mom! I am so lonely!
James! GETTOBEDNOW. ITSTIMEFORSLEEP.
Mom! Can I get my sheet off your floor (he’d brought it into my room in an attempt to sleep on a pallet)?
No! It’s too late to be making beds. It’s time for sleep. Go.
And so on and so forth.

And while it was only an hour and a half, it felt like eternity. He was back and forth, up and down, crying, wailing, trying everything to get me to break. Finally he came in, tears running down his face, voice hoarse, and eyes and lips swollen, and he howled, “I am PATHETICALLY BEGGING YOU. Can I please have my sheet?” LOL! Pathetically begging? Why yes, son, you are pathetic.

I had a very hard time not laughing at that one, but instead I sad (rather loudly to stifle my giggles) “FINE. TAKE YOUR SHEET AND GO TO BED.”

I didn’t hear from him again and assumed that had taken care of it. I woke the next morning and went to check on him. His bed was empty. Looked in Clara’s room. Yup. He’d crawled into bed with Scott. All of it was for nothing. He’d ended up getting his way anyway.

The next night I decided to do more of the same. I’d grounded him for deliberately disobeying me (I’d told him specifically not to get in bed with his dad). I didn’t last nearly as long this time. James had come in for the millionth time, this time for a kiss. We told him we’d already done that, and now it was time for bed. I told him if he was going to cry, he needed to do it with the door shut. So for literally 15 minutes straight, we listened to James moan, “but I DESERVE a hug and a kiss! But I DESERVE a hug and a kiss!” over and over and over and over. I finally shot out of bed, grabbed the bathroom trashcan, went in his room, opened one of his toy drawers and started putting toys in the trash. Each time he made any peep I put another toy in the trash. Just kept doing it over and over. Finally he realized the cause and effect and shut off the noise. Never heard another sound out of him that night. And other than a couple VERY small blips, we’ve been able to sleep all night. I felt TERRIBLE throwing away his toys but dude, it was so worth it.
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Speaking of my son, did you know he is a nerd? I took him to buy some new clothes. Being the cheapskate that I am, we went to the children’s resale shop. I told him to pick out some pants. Some cool pants. I held up this cool pair of tan cargo pants that were adorable. He wrinkled his nose and said, “naaaaah. I like these.” And proudly displayed the goobiest pair of black corduroy, PLEATED front pants. “THESE are cool pants, Mom.” I tried to talk him out of the pants for five minutes before I gave up. Oh well. He makes those pants look GOOD.
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As I was leaving for work, James said, “I wish we had all the money we need so you didn’t have to go to work.” And that, my friends, is exactly the kind of thing that allows me to deal with just about anything the boy hands out.