Time to talk

FINALLY!!! A little story about our little vacation...

I have mentioned before that we are in a very bi-polar phase with Olivia where one minute is extreme ecstasy watching her grow and learn and the next minute is extreme agony trying to teach her to be a well-behaved human being. Though it is challenging, Mike and I actually really like this phase overall. It’s really amazing to listen as Oli’s speech improves, to watch her discover things, to see her brow furrow up as she contemplates a relationship between her thoughts and her world. It’s INCREDIBLE.

The agonizing part though is the obvious, of course: fit throwing, saying “No!” when we ask her to do things, and testing every boundary and rule we have. The Boss Lady is a GREAT kid and I mean that so when I list the “bad” here it is truly just behavior and not her, per say. She is extremely energetic which is a good thing until it’s 7:30 at night and we are just getting home from work and Mike and I are just a *little* exhausted and she’s running circles around us as we rush to get dinner ready and get her into the bath.

She loves to play but can hardly play by herself and has an almost inability to be in a room by herself at all. She will literally be happily watching a movie on one couch while I’m on the other but the second I get up to pee, she jumps up and stands beside the toilet while I take care of business. I think the maximum amount of time she’s played by herself was about 15 minutes. I’m not sure what that’s about. I suspect some of that is a product of our parenting style. We LOVE to interact with our girl and we give her a lot of attention. I wouldn’t change that at all but sometimes it would be nice to be able to do something else in my house except sit on the couch and watch Pixar movies. Because when you get up to do something, ANYTHING else other than pay attention to her, she won’t have any of that either. Cleaning the house is hard with a toddler attached to your leg—literally.

And really we could probably not even need to vent about those things at all if our crazy monkey child would just FREAKING GO. TO. SLEEP. Maybe I’ve alluded to our “sleep issues” a little lately. I can’t remember, I’m too damn tired. But here’s the state of affairs in the Kingdom of No Freakin’ Sleep:

I get up at 5 each day to go to the gym. Mike gets up at 5:30 to get ready for work. I get home between 6:30-7 (depending on the workout of the day). Mike leaves at 7 or 7:30. Olivia wakes up around 7, I finish getting ready and make us both breakfast and we are out the door by 8:30. I drop her off at school where she learns and plays all day. Mike picks her up at 5:30, they go to the gym, she plays and runs at the gym “daycare.” I get home around 6:30 and start dinner. We eat dinner at 7:30, Olivia is in the bath by 8:30 and then she doesn’t freaking go to sleep until 10 or 11!!!!! Yes, you read that right. Let me say it again though:

10 or 11

AT NIGHT!!!!

And by go to sleep I mean that at 9, I’m usually about to fall over dead and I convince her to lay down with me in mine & Mike’s bed only to spend the next 2 hours listening as Barney sings about love and farm animals and rainbows and crap and I threaten Olivia 8,000 times that if she doesn’t lay down and be still she’s going to her own room. So, why do I threaten and not do it? Because folks, about 4 months ago, we had to take Olivia out of her crib and put her in a Big Girl Bed because she’s tall and could scale her crib and did it several times right after she got her cast off. We didn’t want her to reinjure herself so we went ahead and bit the bullet. And do you think she will lay in that bed at all while she’s conscious? Nope. We have tried bedtime routines, we have tried laying in there with her (which only resulted in us falling asleep in her bed while she laid there tossing and turning and asking for things like yogurt and salami and water and books), and we have tried walking her back every time she got up. After about the 30^th (I’m not exaggerating) time of walking her back to her room, the only person ready for bed was Mike or me.

But it doesn’t end there. Even after she finally falls asleep, Oli is back up again at 1 or 2 crying like she’s being attacked and she will NOT go back to sleep without one of us sleeping with her. Folks, this is worse than the Newborn Stage. Just in case you missed why, let me do the math for you: Asleep at 10 (on a good day), up at 1 or 2, up again at 7.

Napping is non-existent as well and has been for about 6 months. She rests at school because it’s required and the whole class is doing it but she does NOT nap at home. I always have to chuckle a little when someone is watching her during the day and they say “She didn’t nap today…” as if they did something wrong. I kind of want to act all shocked and horrified and say something like “HOLY CRAP YOU SCREWED UP HER WHOLE SLEEP SCHEDULE!!!” But that would be mean. Funny but mean. Because everyone just sort of expects that a 2 & ½ year old takes a frickin’ nap.

About a month after lots of tears and me threatening to get on a plane to a tropical island and never come back, we just kind of gave up. There was one particular night that I was just in tears over how tired I was and after a couple of hours of trying to get Olivia to go to sleep, I just got in my car and went for a drive. Mike was home with her and when I finally came home an hour later she was asleep and I was at the end of my rope. That’s when we just quit fighting it.

Now, we just let her stay up until she’s tired. Sometimes she lays down with me in the bed, sometimes she falls asleep in the living room with Mike. And inevitably, at around 1 or 2 she wakes up again and one of us goes to lay down with her. Until about a month ago, I was the one primarily getting up with her but for about a month, Mike agreed to get up with her and he did a great job. Now we just trade off.

And if you read all of this one more time, you’ll notice something HUGE is missing from this picture: time with my husband. Between our work and the fact that we have a child who goes to bed AFTER us and who gets up while we are getting ready for work and who will fight for our attention over dinner should we DARE to have a conversation with each other, we don’t have time to talk AT ALL. And though Mike moves Olivia to her bed once she’s fallen asleep, I’m usually asleep too so we don’t even get to go to bed together. And because one of us has likely gotten up in the night to put her back to bed, sometimes we don’t even wake up in the same bed.

Yes, we could do the co-sleeping thing but sleeping with my toddler is like sleeping with an octopus. There are limbs everywhere and I’m getting kicked in the head, the boob, the stomach, whatever. We do NOT sleep well with her in there between us. Or rather, I don’t sleep well. And let me tell you, when parents say their kid has “sleep issues” what they really mean is “I don’t give a crap why my kid isn’t getting any sleep, I JUST WANT TO GET SOME FREAKING SLEEP.” The only person with the “issue” here is the parent. And that parent is me. And Mike. We need sleep.

There is a very good reason that sleep deprivation is used as a torture technique. You go a few days without it and you start getting cray-cray.

Between our constant parenting and our lack of sleep, Mike and I get to talk so little lately that often friends or family will tell me something expecting me to tell Mike but when they say “Hey, did Steph tell you…” he’s like “Um, nope, didn’t know that.” Because we rarely have time to just debrief about our day. In fact about 2 weeks ago there was something kind of important I needed to tell him and I couldn’t even remember if I had. It’s important to tell your spouse important things!

Really right now I just want to take a break to make sure I’m being VERY clear: We truly have an incredible kid. She is funny and smart and loving and so much fun to be around. What I’m hoping you are getting  a picture of here is how *involved* our lives our with her. So much so that we are missing out on time with each other.

We try to keep it in perspective by reminding ourselves that every time we think we can’t go on through a certain phase, it’s over and we are on to the next. Someday we will get adequate sleep. Someday, we will not have a nightly battle with Oli about bedtime. In fact, someday, we might miss the extra time with Lady Loco. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t a challenging time just as much as it is a rewarding one. Not getting to talk, not getting to really spend time with each other is really hard on Mike and me.

I am incredibly fortunate to have a marriage that is built on a strong foundation but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need some TLC. Mike and I miss just talking to each other. We miss spending a Friday night on the couch watching a movie that doesn’t have talking animals. We miss getting to ask “How was your day?” and then to be able to hear the answer and really respond. We miss getting to snuggle up together as we fall asleep.

Then my sister, Michelle, mentioned she wanted to take a 4 day trip to San Diego to celebrate her 30^th birthday. I think you can imagine mine and Mike’s response. It’s possible we may have been more excited than she was and it was her birthday celebration! We did feel so blessed to be able to go out to celebrate with her and we knew we needed to get away to just be together, to be adults again, to just be us again.

So, in January, we booked 2 tickets to Sunny California and started counting down the days. This past Thursday, my mom got in town to watch Oli A and on Saturday morning at 7:30, we boarded a plane and we were off!

I cannot begin to tell you what an incredible time we had. We had such a blast just getting to spend time together and it was so much fun to spend time with Michelle and her husband, Michael. We walked around the city, enjoyed some of the best food I’ve ever had, and we took advantage of every happy hour we could.

For almost four days, we talked and laughed, we walked the beach, we slept in, and I took long showers without seeing little toddler hands plastered to the shower door asking me when I was going to be done. We even had our own little marriage endurance test in the form of kayaking. Yes, kayaking. Have you ever been? It’s freaking hard. You REALLY have to work together. And I’ll admit that there were a few times I was yelling “What are you doing back there!?!?!?” But we made it and we enjoyed some really awesome views and saw some sea lions and it ended up being a lot of fun.

It was just so relaxing to sit on a patio or in a fun restaurant enjoying food and drinks and hanging out with Michael and Michelle. We talked about all kinds of things and sometimes we even talked about parenthood and The Boss Lady but the most important thing is that we actually got to TALK.

On our last day there, Mike and I were so excited to see our girl. This was the longest we had been away from her and we had both been nervous heading out. I think we had a good mix of enjoying our time away and missing her. It was a perfect amount of time to be away. I’ll admit though: I was sad to leave our little bubble of “US.” I was super excited to see my girl but I knew that the second we came home, it would be back into Crazy Town. Don’t get me wrong, I love Crazy Town. I am a resident here by choice. Hell, I’m damn near the Mayor. But I really enjoyed my 4 days of R&R.

Though our welcome home was tear-inducing for me when Olivia saw me and ran toward me yelling “Mommy!!!” the second we walked in the door on Tuesday night, things have been back to normal. I immediately started on 5 loads of laundry and Olivia refused to go to sleep until 11 even though I was beat from our trip. Right now, I’m watching Oli straddle the back of the couch while singing the wheels on the bus as she attempts to eat yogurt. Oh and we are watching some movie about talking fish. You might have guessed this but there is NO sign of her being sleepy or ready for bed.

I’m okay with all of this insanity though. More okay than I was before we took a break. We really needed that break and I think all parents do. Honestly, it’s not something Mike and I really prioritized before. We are always torn between wanting to be together but being anxious about being away from Olivia for an extended period of time. And when I say “we” I mean “we.” I know it’s more typical for the mom to have mixed emotions but my sweet husband loves his girl. He misses her just as much as I do when we are away.

I think we learned a lot on our little get away. We learned that Oli will be just fine without us for a few days. We learned that we REALLY need to prioritize US a lot better. And we don’t have to fly out of state to do it. We need to just be honest with our family and friends when we need a break and ask them to take Oli for a night. Michelle and Michael said it best on Monday night when they said “You guys suck! Why don’t you just ASK us to keep her for a night?? We totally will!” And really Olivia LOVES spending time with other members of our family. She had a blast spending the weekend with my mom, her GJ (Grandma Jannette). They played and ate lots of sugary things and didn’t have any obligations and that’s good for both of them.

We’ve wanted to have a little getaway well before this weekend but wanting something and actually prioritizing it are two different things.  We can’t help that Olivia goes to be so late and we can’t help that we don’t get much (if any) time together. We CAN help making plans to drop Olivia off with a trusted family member or friend for the day or night so we can be together. I think the best gift we can give our daughter is showing her the importance of taking a break, the importance of spending time together as a couple, the importance of her spending time with other members of our family, and the joy of being together again after having taken a small break apart.

Now all we have to do is figure out our next destination…