The Definition of Insanity

So here we are once again.  Miss Charlotte Shea Schwartz has gone back to her shit sleeping ways.  Is anyone surprised?  I am telling you I am paying for some crimes I’ve committed in a past life with the sleeping habits of this one.  I have sleep trained this child more times than I can even count anymore.  This round came from sheer laziness on my part, where I let the child sleep in my bed because I felt bad for her because of the two year molar madness and because I couldn’t handle her screaming in the crib.  It started out with her waking up at 1 AM or 2 AM and coming in my bed and then devolved to not even going into her crib and just going to bed with me from the get go.  I am telling you I would let this continue every night of my life if she slept even halfway normal.  But I can’t really get much rest when a two year old is sleeping on top of me and sweating into my neck.  She also talks in her sleep, and one night started yelling at Spanky at 3 AM.  Spanky wasn’t there.  Spanky wasn’t doing anything.  Spanky was asleep at my mother’s house all nice and comfortable.  But Charlotte was asleep and screaming “NO FANKY STOP IT” into my ear in the middle of the night.  Things were going downhill fast.

We got home later than usual on Saturday night and Eric and I decided we’d let her sleep with us one last time (hahahaha yeah OK) before we forced her back into her crib last night.  And so last night she went into her crib and screamed at the top of her lungs for 35 minutes.  Which doesn’t sound that long (she’s screamed longer on other sleep training occasions) but now that she talks pretty much in full sentences all the time it was particularly painful. “DADDY OPEN THE DOOR! MOMMY OPEN THE DOOR! PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR! LAY IN MOMMY BED! PLEASE! PLEASE!” all while crying and screaming and slapping her crib.  I took a shower, I went outside, I tried to ignore her and pretend like it wasn’t happening, all while my heart was breaking.  But this is the ONLY way with her, and after almost 2 and a half years you’d think she’d get it by this point.  You think that I’d get it by this point.  She finally went to sleep and stayed in her crib until almost 6 AM and wasn’t scarred by the traumatic bedtime experience like I always think she will be.  In fact, the first words she said to me when I got her were, “mommy! I fart!”  So she was clearly fine.

But the really sick part of this whole ordeal was when I went to bed and was actually upset that she wasn’t next to me and I missed her.  Am I insane or what?  I spend all day with her, let her cry like a banshee because she needs to sleep in her own room, and then I get upset because I miss her.  What is wrong with me?!

Let’s hope tonight is better because honestly with her, I never know.