I Love This Game or Why You're an Only Child

I don’t know if there’s any literature on the subject or if any formal studies have been done, but two year olds like routines, and if their routines are messed with they don’t adjust well. I started putting LMJ to bed tonight at 8pm and I spent the last ten thousand years listening to her scream because something was off. She half-heartedly accepted the answer that Mommy was going to come home tomorrow. She doesn’t really understand that concept, so I knew she couldn’t deal with the day after tomorrow or Sunday. I didn’t want to lie to her and tell her Mommy was at work, and have no where to go when she wakes up tomorrow morning and Mommy isn’t here. That would start her down the inevitable path of not trusting her Daddy as a go to guy for pertinent information a little bit earlier than I would hope. It’s my fault for expecting her to give in to fatigue. Her nap got cut in half today and she started getting cranky at about 6pm. Grammy took her to the park while I updated JSG’s blog, and got screamed at by a two year old for the effort. When we started operation shut down with massive yawns between the sobs during the bath I thought she’d be asleep by 8:30. Man was I wrong. She screamed while I read the books she picked out while screaming. I turned on Mickey Mouse, which distracted her to the point of her head nodding, but she would snap out of it and roll over on the bed to wake herself up. That lasted for half an hour, and then I turned off the television. Guess what she did. I decided to let her cry herself to sleep but she wouldn’t sit still, so I carried her around telling her everything was going to be alright – I could be a back up singer in The Wailers. Every time she would start to put her head down on my shoulder she would shake herself awake. Although I do understand her reluctance since my shirt was drenched in the blood gushing out of my ears from her banshee act. It was only through providence that I had left the living room television on the NBA channel and there were talking heads speaking in a monotonous drone while the Lakers practiced behind them on. I sat her on the couch and the rhythm of the practice lulled her past the point of no return and she said, “Back. Bed”. Thank God.