Now that my baby (and by “baby,” I mean child who walks everywhere and therefore is no longer officially an infant but how can I not call him a baby anymore, SOB) is extremely mobile, I have a new parenting strategy. The strategy is to provide him opportunities to exhaust himself so that he will become compliant and amenable to anything I want him to do. Like for example sleep. This weekend, the new strategy manifested itself in a couple of different areas.
Saturday was a beautiful sunny day so we packed up a bag and some beach chairs and headed off to the park. Silly us, we did not understand that chairs are useless in this new parenting strategy! No, rather the park for us means following him on foot everywhere he goes so we can be prepared to extricate the leaves that he picks up off the ground and shoves in his mouth, or ready to change his direction if he’s rapidly heading toward a ditch. I should also warn you that this strategy requires climbing. I figure working against gravity has got to be a successful method for baby exhaustion. Well, it is, but it is also a fairly reliable way to exhaust your husband. Mine was forced to climb up the playground apparatus approximately eight (8) times to go down the slide.
Then, Sunday we went to the Irvine Spectrum, which is kind of a weird mall, but it has an Oakley store so the hub wanted to go there. In a mall setting, executing the strategy means setting the child free and following after him with the stroller, possibly with some baby wipes in hand to de-dirtify him after he has literally done a belly flop into a puddle and stuck his fingers in every drain he sees.
So there you have it. Operation Baby Exhaustion was a success, but I still haven’t recovered. Red Bull, anyone?
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2 comments:
it gets worse. Last night I was herding LM to bed at 9 and by 9:30 I was in bed myself. LM was still awake, talking to me and I'm begging him to let me go to sleep!! The more I try to wear him out during the day the more worn out I am!
Oh, God! Say it isn't so...
I was kind of hoping that the exhaustion was the result of not having a child of my own, of being inexperienced...you mean to tell me you birth a child and no magic syrum comes out and helps you be super awake mom?
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