For the second night in a row, Kenny woke up at 1:15 AM last night and started screeching. It started off innocently enough as a cry, then a cry of “Maaaaaamaaaaaa!” then morphed into a screech that nearly took out the baby monitor on the nightstand.
Casey went in, and the screams got louder. Only the screams weren’t random… they were screams for, “SNACK!” and “WAFFLE-A-DIP!” and “BLOCKS! PLAAAAAY!” You see, two nights in a row, Kenny has woken up and thought that it was already morning. It’s hard convincing him that it’s still the middle of the night, since he wakes up around 5:30 anyway, and it’s still dark then. So it’s not like we can take him to the window and show him the night sky and settle him back in. No, we have to say things that sound cruel and irrational to his tiny ears, like, “No, it’s not time for snacks, Honey; it’s the middle of the night. It’s time to go back to sleep.” And it’s not like he’s malnourished, or really in dire need for sustainence… last night I offered him a little banana, to see if he was really hungry, and he pushed it away and sobbed, “Waffle!” Then, spying his toys on the dresser, cried, “Ball! BatandBall!”
So for a good twenty minutes, Casey and I stood there, taking turns holding him, while he made these grunted screams that sounded as if they were shredding his vocal chords. Finally, I said, “Enough!” and put him back in his crib. Then the tyrranical screams turned to little boy sobs, and I picked him up again, and we curled together into the chair in his room. I sang quietly as his breathing slowed, his hiccups subsided and the sniffles turned silence. Casey sat outside the room, waiting in case he woke up again. Finally, over an hour later, Kenny was asleep and Casey and I returned, bewildered and exhausted, back to our room.
I still have no idea what it was all about. He didn’t seem scared, just disoriented. He really seemed to think it was morning, and time for his breakfast and a rousing game of legos.
I’ve tried to figure out if there is something specifically waking him up ~ we are in a rented house during our stint here, so there are many quirks we haven’t yet figured out. This house has a pool, a hot tub and two water fountains, and a sprinkler system, so maybe it’s some kind of water pump cycling on. Maybe it’s a heating cycle that makes a thud when it goes off. Maybe the neighbor works nights and comes home to open his garage door at 1:15. Who knows. All I can say is that he was absolutely inconsolable last night for an hour.
And then today he was his normal, giddy, happy self. We read, “Goodnight Moon” two thousand times (except that he won’t let me read the black and white pages, because he only wants to look at the pages with the little mouse on them… and as soon as he spots the mouse, I have to stop reading and turn the page); we colored on a giant piece of construction paper. We ate a whole container of hummos together. We took Dudley on a walk, and Kenny “helped” the whole time. (That’s a stress.. letting a one-year-old hold one end of the leash while walking a 75 pound weimaraner; don’t worry, I clip his end to Dudley’s leather collar, and I hold a shorter leash that is attached to Dudley’s choker, so that I’d take any of the pull if Dudley lunged. The hard part is that Kenny drops his leash at least once a block, so that we all have to stop, I have to get Dudley back into a heel, hand the leash over to Kenny, and then start off again. We don’t get very far very fast… Fortunately, he usually says, “All done!” about ten minutes into it, so then we’re free to speed off down the sidewalk.) We went to the grocery store, and Kenny flirted shamelessly with the lady at the Deli counter.
And tonight, though he was a little clingy at bedtime, he eventually went down wide awake, happily hugging his stuffed sheep (called “Baa”) and murmuring, “Mama. Nigh Nigh.” I have to admit that I’m a little nervous about tonight. I think I’m going to go to bed at 9, just in case.
Little boys, they are a mystery!!
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2 responses to “Silence Shattered”
It never ends… Kristin will wake up around 2-3 am atleast once a week. She always comes downstairs and climbs in bed with me – I have to admit that sometimes I don’t get up and put her back in her bed, especially since there is an empty spot next to me. 😕 😥 Kaitie still has nightmares about 3 or 4 times a year – where she will sit up straight and scream – but it is a night terror, where I can just comfort her and lay her back down b/c she is in a trance. It is all the joys of motherhood…. it might seem like “oh no not again” when it is 1:15 am – but to your little boy it is a great comfort that you got up for him.
Oh, I just thought of something else… Kaitie did that at one yr old so many times – and when I switched her to a bed, she stopped. I think she was tired of being confined… once she had control of getting out of bed by herself, she didn’t want to. :eek::lol::lol::lol:
The poor little guy! Toddler jet lag must be quite confusing to him. Yet I am completely impressed that you’re able to get Dudley in a heel w/o some sort of fairy godmother. You go girl!