i have something for you.
allow me to draw some wisdom from my deep well of parenting knowledge (it's been almost 3 years so i'm basically a pro now, right?) and impart it.
the secret to peaceful toddler room-sharing?
staggered bedtimes.
when the boys were babies, room-sharing was no problem. a newborn and a 13 month old don't get into too many shenanigans. (plus, they were both still in cribs. cribs are the best.)
until they learn to escape.
but now that the
if they're both awake, all hell will break loose. they will (1) destroy things (2) stay up the entire naptime or (3) all of the above.
...yeah.
for example.
a few days ago, i put the boys in for naptime. desmond wasn't fully asleep but i didn't think it would be a problem. (sometimes my judgment leaves a lot to be desired.)
they didn't end up going to sleep.
i figured they would be tired and cranky, but since there isn't much in their room but their beds and an empty bookcase (we have also installed high locks on the bathroom and closet doors so they're off-limits during sleep time), i thought the room would be okay.
hahahaha
well.
somehow they acquired a metal bar from the sliding doors (silas said it was on top of the bookcase, so i'm not sure how they got it down) and used it to fell a paper lantern*.
when i walked into the room, i found that they had completely shredded the lantern into tiny pieces. there were support sticks and paper bits all over the room, and the lightbulb had been smashed (i cleaned up what i could find but random bits of glass keep turning up, which is super fun).
those. boys.
they're lucky i'm biologically wired to love them.
;)
however, to bring this full circle (not that i'm exactly known for my concise and relevant storytelling), putting desmond to bed 30 minutes earlier than tesla pretty much solves the problem.
all the boys watching kipper.
*their room has no lights and we hoped that hanging a lamp and running the cord along the ceiling and into the bathroom would be a way to light the room without interference. it worked...for a while.
-----------------------
if you have any room-sharing tips or horror stories, i'd love to hear them!
have a lovely tuesday.
Haha! Just when you think they cannot do anything. So totally not the same, but once I had a dog who liked to chew things. So, one time during the day I had to be gone and locked her in the bathroom, taking everything out of the medicine cabinet (she had shown me she knew how to access that), took down the shower curtain, EVERYTHING was out of the bathroom. So, she tore up the linoleum and dug through the floorboards to the foundation, then proceeded to eat the bottom half of the door. Oh.My.Word.
ReplyDeleteoh my goodness. that is insane!!!
Deletehowever, i see a lot of similarities between your dog and my children. :/
Oh man. I LOVED this: "they're lucky i'm biologically wired to love them" I have felt this sooo many times.
ReplyDeleteI think I've found, when there is absolutely nothing in the room, they'll just make some turds to play with. Hmmm....tearing pages out of books vs. poop smears on everything...they are equally disturbing to me I think.
ugh. why does that even sound like a good idea to them???
Deletethere are times when i walk in upon a scene, and i just want to turn around and walk right back out, pretending i never saw it.