I Need More Hours, Please

We've been back to our normal routines for, what? A week? I use the word "We" very loosely because while Alexis and I have mostly fallen back into line, Mila is continuing to be a beautiful disaster.

I should put emphasis on the "disaster" part of that.

The child is not going to figure out how to go to bed at a normal hour. Ever. I've decided that every day for her entire childhood I'm going to fight with her about going to sleep. It just IS. I didn't stop fighting with Alexis about it until ... I still haven't stopped. That kid is terrible at going to sleep, I just mostly don't care any more. I occasionally yell "GO TO SLEEP" into her room when I know she's awake too late reading, but I don't care enough to actually force the issue by taking her book away or whatever.

Mila, unlike Alexis, can't cope when she doesn't get enough sleep. Alexis functions fine on 4 hours of sleep. Mila doesn't hit "fine" until she's had 8 or 9 hours. SO SHE HAS TO GO TO BED. So I have to do more yelling.

When Mila doesn't go to bed at a reasonable hour, she pops up on the other side of things A TERRIBLE MESS. She's bad at mornings no matter what, but sleep deprivation just ruins her. On a good day she needs a full episode of Muppet Babies before she can join humanity. On a bad day, forget it. You might as well duct tape the TV to her forehead because that's the only way she's going to be tolerable.

And here we are, in the second week of the year, and the kid can't figure out that she's not staying up until midnight and then sleeping until 10:00. That is her natural state of being, but it doesn't work with the rest of the world. Thus, we're fighting every morning. A lot.

And then came the snow.

There were like four snowflakes on the ground when I drug Mila out of the house this morning. Apparently they were all calling Mila horrible names because she was PISSED. She ran over to stomp on them and then went on a long rant about how snow is dumb and the sun needs to come out and kill it and ...

I'm going to need it to be summer sooner rather than later.

It took half an hour to get the kid to stop being angry and just get in the car. I don't have half an hour to spare for such projects. OYE.

Comments

[Michelle]

We had that problem with H - trouble falling asleep and then a hot mess in the am - and we solved it with kids melatonin gummies. They're magical. And if you've already tried those and everything else under the sun, I'm so sorry for the assvice.