Please just go the “F” to sleep…

Okay, I'll admit it...I still let Morgane sleep in our bed. Well, I don’t exactly that I "let" her...She climbs into our bed in the middle of the night and I don't really bother to get up to take her back to her bed. Truth be told, there have been nights where she does wake me up and says "Mummy, I can't find my doudou" and I actually get up out of my warm, cozy bed to go to her room to search for her doudou. This happened a few nights ago...she got in bed with me at 4:30 am and she laid her head on my shoulder and said "Mommy, I can't find my doudou" and I said "oh Morgane, can't you just go to sleep for the next 3 hours without it" and of course she said "nooo", pretty much on the verge of tears. So I got off to her room, searching for that damn comforter and I can't find it anywhere. I go back to my room and tell her "honey, I can't find your doudou...you'll just have to get back to sleep without it". Then I can see in the dimness of the lights that she actually has her doudou, as she proudly announces " found it...It was mixed in with my blankie". Yup, she drags the whole bed with her when she comes into my room....her  blanket, her Winnie the Pooh and Hello Kitty pillow, as if she feels like if she has a preference for one over the other, that Hello Kitty or Winnie the Pooh may feel like they got axed), her little doudou (this is the one she can never seem to find that she sends me searching for). Oh and her damn 2 pacifiers!!!...yes, let's not forget the damn pacifiers!!! These 2 pacifiers that she refused to give to the Paci-Fairy....I don't think Marry Poppins could convince Morgane to give up these pacifiers. No amount of sexy British accent or promise of fabulous gifts in return for the pacifiers could ever work!!!
I laugh really hard when people tell me "Have you ever seen a kid go off to college with a pacifier? have you? ..So don't sweat it".....Morgane will be the first one to challenge that saying...I bet my money on that!....
Just like this other saying "God does not give you more than you can handle", which I also laugh hard at  when I hear (and then I go fetch myself a nice glass of red wine)....because obviously God does give you more than you can handle (or maybe it's just me and I'm just His test subject).
So back to the whole doudou dilemma...Here I am at  4:30 am in the morning , tiredly wandering the stairs, the living room, and her room to look for (as I now lovingly refer to it as ) this f"ing doudou.
I  JUST realize how screwed I am. The penny finally drops and I’m smacked with reality, right there in the darkness of my own home. My 3 years old daughter has me so tightly wound around her finger that it's actually funny...well, no not really funny as in "haha" kinda funny but funny in the sense that I now realize I'm digging a very deep hole for myself and there's no way out except to use tough love.
And by tough love, I meant, I'm gonna have to start walking her back to her room and make her stay in there. Let's talk about the reasons why I haven't done that so far.....there are 2 of them...Arthur AND Morgane. WHEN Morgane cries when I send her packing back to her room, she'll wake the whole damn neighbourhood up. I guess I'm picking the lesser of 2 evils, if you will. I'd rather be dealing with 1 child who wants to continue sleeping in bed with me (even if it costs me much needed sleep) than deal with 1 crying, grumpy kid in the middle of the night. Morgane is NOT a kid you want to deal with.

Every night when I say goodnight to Morgane, I say "now you're going stay in your room because you're a big girl, alright? And Arthur would be lonely if you left him by himself". I used to say "Hello Kitty will be lonely if you left her" but then she started dragging her effing Hello Kitty pillow along with her to my bed so I stopped saying that, figuring she can't drag Arthur to my bed (well, she probably would if she could....she's definitely the boss in their relationship...she has been the source of many of his time-outs...but she earns a time-out right along with him, as she says "Mommy, but it was Arthur who jumped off the kitchen table, not me" and I say "yes, well, you're the one who told him to do it so you get a time out too". ) Why can I be tough with her in those situations but not at 4:30 am?!

Yeah, so every night we have this conversation about how she's going to stay in her bed because she's a big girl and Arthur would be lonely if he were to wake up and see she's not there and blah, and blah, and blah....she just smiles, hugs me and says "okay, Mummy" and then as I'm walking out her door, I hear her quietly say "see you in the middle of the night". SHIT!!!!

I know it's going be the battle of all battles with this child when it comes to this issue because realistically she'll still be sharing a bed with me when she's 18 yrs old if I don't put a stop to it. But I just do not want to deal with it now. But I need my sleep, dammit!  And I know I can't be the only parent dealing with this situation....the thought of another 3 yr old child climbing in her parent's bed gives me great pleasure because then I realize I am not alone. That's how I give myself permission to believe that it's okay to do this, just for now…
Good Lord, why doesn't anyone tell you how difficult parenting is?! I know I'll be the main reason my kids end up on some therapist's sofa someday in the future, crying about the woes of their childhood. Well, maybe Other Half will share that responsibility as well because Lord knows he's not earning the "Parent of the Year" award either. I guess that'll go to Angelina Jolie this year because he makes parenting look so easy.

I realize this is a mega long post, much longer than I intended it to be actually. But once I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll....tough love with Morgane will come later. For now, she wins the battle. And she knows it.

And now, I wanted to share with you the video below… I really need to get that book and read it to my kids….