There is a certain love affair that babies have with their mothers. Yes, they get that Daddy loves them and Grandma loves them and whomever else, but as babies, Mom is generally number one. In our family, The Boy was no exception as a baby. Sometimes he'd go through phases where he'd be more into Daddy, and this would happen more frequently because of the great relationship that they had and the fact that Daddy was home with him until he was diagnosed (because that coincided with the end of my schoolyear).
The nature of The Boy's treatments and, more specifically, the addition of Meatball to the family, has tipped the balance in the other direction. Several times this evening when I picked The Boy up to change a diaper or to give him a hug after his Neupogen shot, he cried for Grandma. We actually put him in his own bed tonight, and he was doing fine for awhile, just playing with his toys and reading his books. He needed a diaper change and was SCREAMING at the gate for Grandma. She wisely declined the invitation. When it's not Grandma, it's Daddy...but when it's Mom's turn, generally it means something that is less fun. I do the diaper changes, the medicines, the shots, the teeth brushing, and the bedtime. I tell him when it's time to turn off the TV. I'm the one that says "no" to a second cup of fruit ice and the one who insists on offering things other than noodles at the table.
In other words, I'm the bad guy.
The benefit that I saw a few minutes ago to my being the bad guy was The Boy's progression from sitting in the chair insisting on more Elmo to willingly sleeping in his own bed. I brought him upstairs and sat him on the bed, and Grandma read to him. Then the phone rang and she left him in there, thinking that I'd go in and sit with him. As it turned out, he was playing with another "favorite toy" (this shape sorter) and reading his elephant book, so he didn't need me right away. Then came the screaming for Grandma, the diaper change, my cleaning the diaper (with my handy-dandy new diaper sprayer), and my return to a still-screaming boy. Amazingly enough, Meatball stayed asleep through all of this.
Once I had The Boy in bed, he started calming down. He lay down on his Elmo pillow to go to sleep, all on his own. Furthermore, I left the room as soon as he put his head down, and he was fine with it.
I guess that because he knows that I'm the bad guy and will rarely be the softie on his behalf, he figured that there's no point in fighting the bedtime thing.
Next goal: getting this bed thing to happen BEFORE 11 PM.
2 comments:
It is definitely normal! I brush Andrew's teeth, do the diaper changes, and get him to bed at night. Whenever I brush his teeth, he screams for Daddy. Diaper changes--why is Mom so evil? Because Daddy lets him run around naked all day and he doesn't take him to the potty, so he basically makes messes all over the floor (we have wood, but still). He then tells him he is supposed to go in the bathroom. Um yeah. So when I set him on the potty in the evenings or on the weekends, he screams, "down!!! down!!!" He hates it. Urgh.
I'm the bad guy too!
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