History of the J Man

Over the last month or so we started struggling with getting Jonah to bed.  I’m not sure if it was his new found use of the English language that kept him wanting to stay up and learn or what.  We certainly had to fight him there for a time.  Now, it seems that we’ve slipped back into more of a normal routine without the fight, however, now mornings are becoming challenging.

Weekday mornings Chris gets up at 5:30, showers, walks the dog and leaves for work around 6:30.  Most days Jonah would wake up some time between then and 7:00.   I should back up and say that at night now he wants to fall asleep with his light on low and his door open.  He asks for both specifically.  Both seem to help keep him calm at bedtime so that’s fine.  Whatever works.  I go in and check on him once he’s asleep and turn off the light.  At some point during the night I check on him again and close his door so Chris doesn’t wake him in the morning when he goes to walk the dog. 

For the past couple mornings he’s woken up and started screaming because his door is closed and he can’t open it himself.  We have one of those toddler door knobs on the inside because we don’t WANT him opening the door on his own.  We don’t want him wandering the house at night getting into who-knows-what.  I’m a light sleeper but I’m not sure I’d hear everything. 

(Side story: Last Saturday when he woke up early Chris walked to his room and told him he had to play quietly in his room till 7:00 but didn’t close his door.  At some point though I heard him and it didn’t sound like he was in his room anymore.  Chris again went back to check on him and said he was reading books in his bed.  Well we were both right.  The little stinker had gotten his chair, moved it up to the shelf in the dining room where we keep his box with crayons and craft supplies and helped himself.  He even got paper.  When I got to his room a little later I saw that he was working on a project with his glitter glue in his bed!  Fortunately I only saw glitter on the paper and on his pillowcase.  All his crayons were in there too and I don’t want to imagine what he could have done with those!  Needless to say, that container is up and out of reach now.  Ok, end of that story.) 

So as he cried to me “no close door” yesterday morning I contemplated leaving it open all night.  I really don’t want to do that though so I told him that I close it in the morning so daddy doesn’t wake him up.  I told him just to call me and I’d come get him but if he woke up too early he could turn on his light and play quietly in his room. 

So what do you know?! Before Chris left with the dog this morning I asked him if I should get Jonah up to get him ready for Leah’s house and his response was, “I think he’s already up, his light is on.” It’s really nice that it was so quiet today until about 6:15 but now I’m not going to have any idea how much sleep that kid is getting.  I doubt it, but for all I know he could have gotten up at 5:00am today!  Unlikely but possible. 

For now, while it’s dark in the morning and I’m not too pregnant to be uncomfortable sleeping I’ll take those few extra minutes of quite in the morning as long as I can.  In a diaper, in his own room there’s not much damage he can do, right? 

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