Horrid Phases Children Put You Through

If you have children, you know what I mean by the title.

If you haven't experienced this yet, you are so lucky.

Enjoy these moments of "normal" bliss. Because one day, your child is going to surprise you, catch you completely off guard and throw a stick into your bike tires.

Right now, we are experiencing a "different" side of Declan and it's wearing us out a bit.

Every night, for the past 2 1/2 years, he would go to bed with ease, fall asleep immediately and sleep through the night (for the most part).

Then, without even a memo or proper notification about the upcoming lack of sleep, he decides that he no longer wants to go to bed. Ever again.

Not without a fight.

Every night, after the last cartoon is finished, Declan starts whining. Then we put him in bed and the "no, no, no!" starts. We say our good nights, keeping our routine exactly the same as before, and shut the door.

Once the door is shut, the full out screaming starts. Declan runs to his door, pounding away, as if something is chasing him, and screams "Mama!" or "Dada!", just to see who will respond first.

The first night, he didn't start until 1 a.m. and I made the mistake of giving in and we spent the night sleeping on the living room floor. Worst idea ever. Because now he knew that he had me in his adorable little clutches. I was wrapped around his little finger. He had me sucked into believing that there was something wrong, when really, he was just fine. I think you get my point.

Mommy is the easy one to fool.

The second night, we put him in there and it started immediately. We let him have it out for a bit. Jay and I went in there to comfort and soothe every 5 minutes or so, but it lasted for 30 minutes until he finally fell asleep. He has an AMAZING set of lungs! I'm surprised the neighbors weren't coming over to check and make sure we weren't torturing our child.

The third night, last night, Declan fell asleep quicker, but woke up around 2 a.m. with another round of screaming and crying that lasted for 10 minutes.

I know, some of you are frowning on the fact that we use the "cry-it-out" technique. But honestly, it works best for our kids. To each their own.

I'm so excited for tonight. Because I will get to sit on the couch, wring my hands while my child screams his face off in his room, hoping and praying that he will just get through this phase and go to sleep.

These are the moments that teach us to appreciate the "normal" times even more. You take them for granted. We start getting comfortable in our simple routine and just when you think things couldn't get better, one of your kids decides to test you.

Before this new phase, we had a nice plan set up: once 8 p.m. rolls around, we bust out the cookies, pop on our favorite TV shows and relax....not anymore.

I know that these "phases" are short lived but I'm pretty sure they are planned just to make sure I know how good I usually have it.

It happens about every 3 months with kids. One of them decides it's time to stir the pot and change the game plan. Most times, it's just adding a sick kid to the mix. But every now and then, something like this happens and you are never prepared for when it hits. There's no plan of attack, no book to help you out, and Advil won't make it all go away.

You just make up some sort of half-assed plan and hope to God that it works out.

My husband never understands this. He's always like, "I don't know how to do some of this stuff, what do you normally do?"

"Make it up as I go along and pray super hard that it actually works and doesn't do any permanent damage that they'll hold against me when they are older."

Ta-dah! Mom secrets revealed. Don't tell. I'm going to put this in a book and sell millions of copies.

Now, it's Friday and I need to get to work on convincing my husband that the house is in shambles, I'm super-duper stressed out, and just about on the edge of going insane, so that he'll feel guilty enough to get us pizza for dinner tonight and a movie to go along with it.

I'm going to take all the pacifiers away, except for 1, pinch the twins a little and get them fighting over that 1 pacifier, so when he walks though the door and hears all the screaming, sees the mess of toys in the living room and the disaster that's my hair *POOF* instant stress!

Wish me luck.

Oh wait...who needs luck when this is really my life?

He's a lucky man.