Bitty and the Boy

We had a busy witching hour this morning. The Boy was up and could not get back sleep.

Important Information to the story...

a) Jason (my husband) and I have a deal. I get up with the boys at night during the week. He gets up with the boys on the weekend.

b) This was Sunday morning...most definitely a weekend.

c) Jason is a sneaky, sneaky man.


Back to the story.

The Boy came into our room at midnight. He was whining about something or other. I do not know exactly what he whined about this particular time because his Daddy fielded this instance. Normally, his whining stand-bys are thirsty, scared, had a bad dream, scared of his room, or it is just plain lonely in his room. His Daddy took him back to his room after some cuddling.

Fifteen minutes later, The Boy is back. This time he comes straight to me and tell me he had a bad dream. Since I know he has not been to sleep since the last time he was in my room, I doubt the bad dream angle of the story. Anyway, I look over and Jason is asleep. Here is when I should have just kicked him out of bed. But I am a good wife. So if he is asleep, I will take The Boy back to bed. I tucked him in real tight. As I was leaving, he stops me. "Mommy, there is something that tastes bad in my mouth. I can't sleep with it there." Hmmm. I got him some water and he drank it. This apparently helped the taste situation. He gets tucked in and I am headed back to bed. As I enter the room, Jason says, "that is the second time in 20 minutes that he has been in here." He was awake! I only got up to spare him from waking up. Not again.

Twenty minutes later, The Boy is back. Jason and I are both up and in gentle discussions with The Boy. After a long discussion on why he just can't go to sleep, Jason informs him that he gets ONE more tuck in tonight. Any more than that and he will have to get in bed and cover himself up (this is absolutely horrible for Our Boy.) Then my sneaky husband says, " Who do you want for your last tuck in?" Are you joking me?!? Of course, he is going to pick me. The Boy is a smart boy and is clearly not going to chose the parent who just doled out punishment. Sneaky man. The Boy is still trying to not have to go back to his bed and begins whining, "I am not tired. I can not sleep." I get up and reach out to hold his hand on our walk across the house. The Boy drops to the floor and starts whining, "I'm too tired to walk. I'm too sleepy." I have to use my Mommy voice to get him to get up and hold my hand. As we walk back to his room, I explain the irony of being too tired to walk 30seconds after being not sleepy enough to sleep. I tucked him in with extra kisses and a loving reminder that this was the last tuck in of the night. We finally all get some sleep.

This morning when I tell Jason that he was very sneaky. He looks all innocent and says, "What? How? I didn't do anything." Like I said...sneaky, sneaky man.


Addition to the story: The Boy's conversation with his Ma (Jason's mom).

Ma: Did you sleep well last night?
The Boy: Not really. I was up quite a bit.

I love watching my boys grow up into wonderful people. Sometimes I look at them and wonder how they change some aspect of themselves so quickly, though. This is VBS week at our church. Which translates to long days for the boys. Yesterday was packed to the brim with fun. We spent the morning at VBS. Then we went to see Ma & Papa at the lake for lunch, boating, and a little swimming. At the last (and best) swimming area, my boy who is a bit afraid of deeper water (than the foot in the baby pool, I mean) took off his life jacket so he could go underwater looking for shells and rocks. I pondered who this boy was because just last week I couldn't go 3 feet away from him at the pool where he was protected by his cherished floaties. It brought a smile to my face to see his glee at rock/shell finding and to witness his progression in water proficiency.

After the lake, we went back to church for the VBS Family Night for a totally funtastic time. The church has rented some huge inflatables. One for little kids, the Titanic slide, and a ginormous obstacle course. My usually shy boy rushed away from me, found a couple friends, and never looked back. I watched as he ran from one inflatable to the other. He was never nervous. He never looked back. He played on them for over an hour and a half. I made him take a hot dog break and then he was back playing until they closed up shop.

I am so proud of The Boy and even more grateful for this morning when he came into my room crawled into my room and said, "Mommy, I want to cuddle up with you a little bit this morning." I want to cherish these "little boy" times because you never know when will be the last morning cuddle.

We have this little neighbor girl, Mary Grace. She is a stylish 6 year old. She loves to have fun and play, but the girl is stylin' while she does it. Because of this all the neighborhood and church boys are in love with her. I have heard at least 4 boys (under the age of 7) say they are "going to marry Mary Grace." Yesterday, I was telling someone about how fun Mary Grace was at VBS that morning. She ate her goldfish crackers and decorated her bagel (don't ask) with so much poise. So, I said, "Mary Grace is so..." I was about to say "graceful...or girly" when from the back seat The Boy says, "beautiful. Mary Grace is always soooo beautiful."

We had two birthday parties to attend this weekend. They were full of tough obstacles for our shy 5 year old.

Party #1: Ashley and Brooke's Water Fun Party. They had a great water slide in the front yard, sprinklers, and baby pools. The Boy was nervous about all the gleeful girls. He only knew Ashley and she was in full birthday party swing by the time we got there. After hovering around us for almost an hour, he started getting more brave. He would run through the sprinkler as long as Bitty and he were the only ones near it. They played in the baby pool alone together. Finally, he started getting comfortable around the other kids. He climbed up the water slide and patiently told the boys and girls at the bottom to watch out. (He didn't want to slide into them. How polite!) He slid down and practically didn't come up for air...though he did come up for pizza and cake.

Party #2: Navaeh's party at Skate Odyssey. This party was full of the same problems as the first one. He was fine putting on the skates. He didn't mind falling. He is really a brave boy in some ways. He was fine rolling around on the carpet. He just didn't want to get onto the rink. I assumed it was because he was nervous about going fast or falling. Upon further conversation, I found out that he just didn't want to be out there with so many people. After missing out on the skate races and the "prize for all racers", I talked my son into going around with me. He really was fine. In fact, after the initial two or four laps, he wouldn't even hold my hand anymore.

If anyone out there has any suggestions to aid social anxiety at his age, please feel free to comment.

In stark contrast, Bitty would have gone on the water slide from minute one, except he really wants to be attached to the Boys hip. Bitty also wanted his own skates and then was furious when I skated without carrying him around with me. (Skating with a 2 year old on your hip is much harder than it sounds.)