Kate Goes Nuclear

Over the past week or two I've been feeling that Kate was slowly becoming more accustomed to Davis and generally progressing from antagonistic to simply apathetic about his existence. I'm not so sure anymore.

On Saturday night I put her down to sleep at around 7 p.m. For months I've been aware that, with Kate, we have it made when it comes to bedtime. This is seriously all it takes:

Me: "Kate, its time to go night-night. Give Mom a kiss goodnight."
Kate: <Goes over and kisses Jaime then goes upstairs, goes into her room, turns on the light in her room and gets her favorite blanket.>

Me: "Kate, let's go brush your teeth."
Kate: <Walks into the bathroom, climbs up on her stool, tries to turn on the water and then opens her mouth so I can brush her teeth. Laughs as she tries to bite my finger and I pretend to be scared. Well, maybe I'm not totally pretending...>

Me: "Kate, let's change your diaper and put on your pajamas."
Kate: <Goes back into her bedroom, opens the drawer on her changing table, gets a diaper and brings it to me and lays on the ground in front of me so I can change her diaper and put on her pajamas.>

Me: "Kate, can you turn on your air and turn off the light?"
Kate: <Goes over and switches on her air filter that we use for "white noise," hitting the button the requisite two times for the medium setting, and then goes over and switches off the light and walks over to where I'm sitting in the rocking chair and climbs up into my lap with her blanket.>

Me: "Do you want a song?"
Kate: <Nods affirmatively and says quietly:> "Song?"

I sing her a couple of songs and then place her into her crib, eyes open, and she rolls over and goes to sleep. Seriously. That's how easy it is.

So Saturday night was a bit of a shock. She went to bed without problem at around 7. But sometime around midnight I heard her whining in bed. She does this every now and then, a bit more frequently since Davis arrived, but usually it just requires a re-insert of the pacifier and, at the most, a couple of minutes of rocking in the rocking chair, repeating the last couple of steps in the process, to put her back to sleep.

So I rocked her for a few minutes and then tried to put her back in the crib. But as soon as I started to stand up from the chair she started kicking violently and whining loudly. I sat back down and rocked her for 5 minutes more, then tried again to stand up so I could put her back in bed. Again, more kicking and more yelling. I repeated the process a couple of more times, each time trying to rock her longer so that she'd actually fall asleep and I could extricate myself and get back to bed. But each time she sensed I was going to put her back in the crib, she yelled and kicked, finally scratching a nice gash on my lip (time to cut those fingernails).

I finally decided if I was going to be awake for a long time until she fell back asleep, I was at least going to watch some Sports Center. So I took her downstairs and lay back on the couch with her on my chest as I watched highlights of Kobe destroy the Jazz -- as if I needed to see that again. Unfortunately, this seemed to wake her up a little, and she eventually hopped off the couch and went over to her toybox and started pulling out toys. While playing with Noah's Ark animals at one in the morning didn't seem like the best idea, I let her play for a few minutes and then realized that if I wasn't able to get her back asleep soon that she'd end up keeping me awake all night. So I picked her up and headed back up to her room. She started kicking again but now started SCREAMING at the top of her lungs. I took her into her room, and she continued screaming with all her might. Jaime soon came into the room to find out what torture I was inflicting upon her and, when Kate spotted her, started screaming "M-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-M-M-M-M-M-M!!! and reaching for Jaime. I shrugged, and although I knew that Jaime had been up feeding Davis not long before, realized that Kate had just handed me my "go back to bed card." Jaime headed down to the kitchen with her to get a drink, but then Kate started screaming "D-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-D-D-D-D-D-A-A-A-A-A-A!" We tried swapping a couple of more times, and soon realized that Kate did not want either of us to leave.

Not willing to be held hostage by a one-year-old at one o'clock in the morning, I finally grabbed Kate and told Jaime to go to bed. I tried holding Kate tight so she couldn't attack me (not sure where the logic is in that), but she landed a couple of blows to my face and kicks to my ribs and stomach. I'll say this: she's deceptively strong. I eventually got her calmed down enough by going through the "get me a diaper" routine and changing her diaper, but she continued to sob and whine, calling for Jaime. She was obviously exhausted. I eventually got her to lay down with me on the couch, and eventually she stopped crying and I was able to take her back into her bedroom and rock her until she finally fell asleep.

Holy fire. I don't want to repeat that anytime soon.

She did have her 18-month immunization booster on Friday, so she could have been feeling a little sick that night, or maybe she's just really struggling with having to share the attention at home. Guess this isn't the time to tell her that we actually want to do have more children eventually.

Friends who saw me Sunday asked "How's Davis sleeping?" I had to reply, "Davis? Oh, he's no problem at all."

It's Kate and ME who seem to be having the problems.