The "Love Me" Phase.

The "Love Me" phase. It's the "hold me, rock me, never put me down" phase. It sucks. We love snuggle time at bedtime with the kids (almost 6 and nearly 2 year olds). It's our quiet time together after the whirlwind of our day. Rhy is great to go to sleep. He can put himself to sleep; he just prefers one of us to be with him. Coop gets rocked until he falls asleep (given away by his twitches) and we'd transfer him into his crib. Until now. 

Now as soon as I stand up for the transfer, his eyes pop open, his arms wrap tightly around me and I can feel his little body tense with the anticipation of being put in bed. The moment his body touches the mattress he's flipping himself over to stand up and yell at me. It breaks my heart knowing that all he wants is to snuggle. However, when it's 9pm and he's still awake, something's gotta give. "No" I tell him. "Snuggle time is over, go the f*** to sleep". I kiss him good night, tell him I love him millions, and then leave. I'm sure his scream could be heard throughout the quad counties. It wasn't an "I'm in pain" scream. It was surely, without a doubt a "You call yourself a dad? Get back here and rock me!" scream. Guttural. Shaking mad. Pissed.

It was only that one scream and then he was reduced to tears and crying. I let him cry for 15 minutes. Surely by now he's worn himself out and will fall asleep fast if I rock him. His big brother was 2 doors over sound asleep and I didn't want him waking up, too. It's hard enough to get one kid back sleep. Two awake is beyond anything I'm capable of resolving. At 9:30 (after rocking for 15 minutes) he was twitching again. I gave him a couple more minutes. I rose, waiting to feel his arms clench around me. Nothing. I laid him in bed and he stirred and my heart stopped. But he was only looking for his penguin stuffy and 2nd Binky. I covered him as gently as new fall snow. I held my breath and crept out of the room as quietly as I could and shut the door; not daring to breathe again until I was downstairs.

We've got a plan now and he will sleep...