Make it stop!

I'm sure every parent goes through this - your child is like the Energizer Bunny on speed & you just want to push the "pause" button.....except they don't come with a remote, a volume control or even a 'quick guide to your child' booklet. You, my dear, are on your own.

Little P is going through that fun stage where even the silliest, littlest thing can have her 'going off like a frog in a sock' (to quote my teenage self). For example, M is asleep so I say 'we need to be quiet, so Daddy can sleep.' She smiles & nods & then proceeds to run around in circles yelling 'Daddy sleeping! Daddy sleeping!' I'm not quite sure how being quiet translated into the equivalent of a riotous football fan, but there you have it.

And I know I'm not alone. A friend of mine has a little boy around Little P's age, and his favorite thing at the moment is to run round and round the kitchen table screaming 'Lightning McQueen!! Vroom vroom!' And he will do this till he either falls down exhausted, gets thirsty and asks for a drink or his mother runs interference and blocks him at some point and makes him go sit down and 'relax'. 

And the worst part of it? While it doesn't seem to wear them down at all, you wind up needing a nap from just watching them. And more often than not, they can do this on minimal sleep. Argh!

A friend of mine loves to say that being a parent is 'a young person's job' and there are times when I totally agree with them. In your 20's you could party like a rock star, go home, have a shower and still be able to work a full day and be coherent while there. In your 30's it starts to slow down, but you can still pull off the occasional all-nighter without any major ramifications. But by the time you get close to your 40's you feel like you need to have an IV with vitamin B in it permanently attached to your arm just so you can feel like half a human being. The next 10 years do not bode well for me and my levels of energy.

Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that Little P is an active kid. I could just do with a day or two when running up and down the hall with her baby stroller and her 'babies' didn't constitute as 'wind down' time. I swear, she only switches off when she's asleep - and some nights even then she doesn't stop.... it's like shes' salsa dancing in her sleep.

However, I have no doubt, that by the time she hits her teenage years, she will be the exact opposite - I will have to resort to drastic measures to get her out of bed in the morning, and even more drastic measures to have her interacting with the world in general.....

So, while I still can, I will deal with the non-stop, full throttle Little P. I figure in about 13 years, I will get a breather.... 

K