Mommy Day

Big Bro shows off his cooking class creation

I love my job for many reasons, but perhaps the most important is that it allows me to have a great work/life balance. With a four-day schedule, I’m off on Fridays, and ever since Big Bro was born we’ve referred to Friday as “Mommy Day.”

On Fridays, we wake up and have a leisurely breakfast. When the weather is nice, we go to a park or on a play date with friends, and when the weather’s too hot, we usually take advantage of our local rec center and its open gym and story time for ages five and under. The last couple summers, I’ve enrolled Big Bro in kids cooking class so he has something fun and age appropriate to do while Baby Bro and I hang out in the gym playing with push toys and balls. When class is done we play for a bit, eat lunch at the pizza place down the road and go home for Baby Bro’s nap.

Big Bro and I have been doing this since he learned to walk. There was a time we frequented the pizza place so much one of the servers knew us and our order, and always ended our meal by giving my little guy a lollipop he got to choose out of a jar.

Mommy Day is my favorite day of the week. But it’s about to change.

Today, we woke up and ate a leisurely breakfast. We went to the rec center and I dropped Big Bro at his last cooking class for the summer. Baby Bro and I played in the gym and then we all went to Geno’s for a slice. All the while I soaked it in, knowing next Friday won’t be the same.

Next Friday, I’ll drop Big Bro off at kindergarten. Baby Bro and I will find something to do until it’s time to pick him up again and go home for a nap. The rest of the day will be familiar, always ending in a bedtime story and a song for as long as he’ll let me. Right now, We’re reading Winnie the Pooh House on Pooh Corner, which ends with Christopher Robin starting school and leaving his fluff-filled friends behind.

I thought it was a timely and sweet story to start reading as summer came to an end, but now I can’t help but feel like that silly old bear.

Though it’s bittersweet, I guess the new Friday routine will have its perks. With Big Bro in school, I’ll get one-on-one time with Baby Bro that we’ve never really had before.

I can start to see the next phase of parenthood on the horizon. One where diapers and pull-ups are behind us. One where my kids can both play independently for hours but still want us around. One where we can go to sports games and theme parks and movies but still do bedtime and a song. And a story. For as long as they’ll let me.

The Bedtime Battle

Ask any parent about their biggest challenge and they’ll probably tell you it’s sleep. With a newborn you’re up around the clock and with sleep regressions every time a growth spurt comes along, it seems there will never be a light at the end of the tunnel, or in this case a nightlight at the end of the pillow.

Baby Bro has been our “good sleeper” from the beginning. His big brother would struggle to fall asleep so often I don’t know how much gas I wasted driving aimlessly around our neighborhood well into his toddler years to get him to doze off. Drew and I became so familiar with the classical music station we could hum along to Piano Concerto Number 2 in C Minor. Don’t act like you’ve never heard of it, it was top of the charts in the early 1900s.

But Baby Bro, he sleeps like a rock. He naps for hours and he hardly ever wakes up during a transfer. For those of you who aren’t parents of young kids, a transfer is when you take your sleeping child from their car seat to their crib, unbuckling and opening doors like you’re defusing a bomb. It takes a steady hand and the silence of a ninja.

Like many other things during the “terrible twos,” sleep has now become a battle. Drew and I have been on the front lines on and off for weeks. At first, it was a harmless and adorable, “I want to sleep in mommy daddy’s bed.” Cute, right? So cute, we let him right in. Slightly less cute after getting repeatedly kicked in the face by a sleeping and squirmy little boy for the next few hours. Thank God we upgraded to a king size bed this year because for the following few nights I found myself sleeping next to my husband, my dog, my toddler, his stuffed turtle, Waddles the penguin, and teddy.

That weekend, we decided to “refresh” his bed. We took the bars off his crib and turned it into a toddler bed, talking it up the whole time. He hopped right in and slept like a big boy! Patting ourselves on the back, we went to sleep soundly. For one night.

The drawback of the toddler bed is that it does not actually contain your toddler. And the drawback of a toddler is that they’re mobile, tall enough to reach the door handle, and smart enough to unlock it.

The following night, I decided to take a “he’ll sleep eventually” approach. I took him on a 25-minute jog, he stood outside of my shower, and then he sat down with me to watch a reality dance show. At 10:45 he was still wide awake and smiling the whole time. When I went to bed, he followed right behind. He sat wide awake, squirming around for I’m not sure how long because I fell asleep despite it all. Then, I woke up to the noise of our garage door.

It was Drew, muttering to himself and gathering tools to assemble the crib at 1:30am. Thirty minutes later, the toddler was contained.

We may have won that bedtime battle, but we have not yet won the war. If you need me, I'll be fueling up the car and humming a soothing piano concerto. At this point, I'll do whatever it takes.