Given the terrible sleep Evie gifted me for the first year of her life; my most recent sleeping “complaint” is really no problem at all but it bears recognition nonetheless.
Evie, of late, has required a plethora of pecks, a surfeit of smooches, a king’s ransom of kisses every night before she will give up the daily ghost. It started out innocently enough. One night, before I left the room, she requested that I not just give her a kiss on the forehead but also provide a comparable kiss to her blanket. I, seeing no harm in it, complied and laid a nice big wet kiss on her blanket and then bid her good night. The next night, however, an escalation occurred; and she requested not just a kiss for herself and her blanket but also one for each knee. I, still naïve to the arms race of kisses that was to befall me, gave in and provided not one, not two but four kisses that night. No big deal, not too much of an indulgence I thought. On the third night I provided each of the aforementioned kisses plus one for each foot and hand. I started to suspect I had made myself a brand new delay-the-bedtime-for-as-long-as-possible bed and by god was Evie going to make me sleep in it.
On the fourth night it became clear that I had started down a road that I did not want to be on when she asked not only for a kiss for her, for her blanket, for her knees, hands, and feet but also her bed, doll, mattress, belly, ear and nose. What was I to do? I had become so accustomed to her just lying down in bed with out a peep that I couldn’t face leaving the room with her crying… especially not calling after me for more kisses! I hate to admit it but that night I complied. The next night, not wanting to face a smooch showdown I had Patrick put her to bed. (He, of course, was only required to do the usual amount of kisses, Evie knows a sucker when she sees one) The night after I put her to bed but put my foot down after 10 kisses… and then left her to complain.
Now, I am afraid that this little tale has yet to achieve happy ending status. For the past two weeks I have been stuck providing a rather silly amount of kisses to my daughter each and every night and then inevitably leaving her wanting for more. But I will tell you this; in the grand scheme of sleep issues I’ll take a minute of crying after me for more kisses over waking me up every two hours any day!
