Julie Tullos

The most fun thing I get to do with my two year old is put her to bed. Every night this process is a roaring success. We have our nighttime routine, like all the experts say, so OF COURSE it’s successful.

Not really. Really it’s like a new, fresh Hell every night.

My  husband made the remarkable discovery that Baby Girl will calm down by watching YouTube videos while you rock her. Specifically, country gospel videos. But please don’t think that just any country gospel video will do. The other night I tried Dolly Parton. She took the phone and watched for half a second, said “No” and handed it back to me. So next I tried Johnny Cash. Again, after a moment of consideration – “No.” Alright kid, I know you like Alan Jackson so let’s try “Remember When.”

“NO. NO No no no nooooooooo!!!” Oh my Lord. Fine. Alan’s got a gospel album. Let’s try that. Here he is, see, sitting in his cowboy hat singing Blessed Assurance – will that do you? Ahhh yes. My 26 month old daughter has a crush on Alan Jackson. She has to be able to see HIM, not some dumb music video. And he has to be singing about GOD. So if this were the only bedtime ritual that we had to perform, well I would count my lucky stars. Sometimes she wants me to read her books after I finally get tired of Alan Jackson. OK fine, which books? ALL the books in this room, Mommy, of course! (After discovering this I make sure there are at max 4 books in the room and sometimes I hide three of them). I can read “Llama llama red pajama” and think about a million other things at the same time at this point. Are you sleepy yet? Good, let’s put you in your bed. Thankfully she has finally let sleeping on the floor go (this was a thing) and will let me lay her in the bed. But can I then leave the room and she falls asleep calmly all on her own? Oh no, mommy must sit in the chair until Baby Girl is asleep and then sneak out very carefully.

Guys I am serious. This is the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. I have tried everything I can think of to get the hell out of her room in less than an hour. Every evening my mind is pulled to the peace and quiet of my own bedroom where I could be reading or watching House Hunters while the little dear is sound asleep in her little bed by the reasonable hour of 7:30. Because, you know, I am old and I like to go to bed myself by 9 ish. Especially as I know that when I sneak out of her room that is very likely NOT the last time I will see the precious angel before morning. Baby Girl is, like her mama, a very light sleeper. And apparently has dreams and nightmares. Imagine, for a moment, at 12 am (and 2 am and 4 am) your brain telling you “wake up, wake up! Baby Girl is awake and screaming!” and your body basically saying “Oh for Pete’s sake, kid, shut up and go back to sleep.”

Sometimes she ends up in my bed, sometimes I am lucky and she doesn’t. Spraying (drenching) lavender scented oil stuff on her pillow achieves nil results. Just saying. Even on the nights she amazingly, blessedly sleeps all night long, I still wake up panicked at 4 am wondering what is wrong with her that she HASN’T woken up! I cannot win folks. I am looking forward to the years where I will have to blow a bull horn to get her OUT of the bed. What a blessed assurance that will be!

https://youtu.be/BUpLuy_hnoU

I’m Julie. I’m 41 years old and I have a two year old monster. Toddler. Whatever. Same same. Seriously this child was prayed for and loved long before she got here. When I was pregnant I implored God for her to be “like me” rather than more like my husband, who is a calm, rational, easy going person most of the time. I, however, am not usually calm, am very passionate and get frustrated easily. My husband already had a daughter – my step-daughter – who is EXACTLY like him. I wanted someone in my corner so to speak. Someone who would share my passion, my kind of humor, my love of learning and reading. Someone I could fully understand instead of always wondering “what on earth is he/she thinking?” “How does he/she stay so freaking calm?!” “Aren’t they LISTENING?! Doesn’t he/she CARE?”

Obviously I realize that he/she does indeed care but just has a very different way of showing it. So I prayed. And I got what I prayed for. In every way, every day and without a single solitary doubt. In retrospect I think I should not have prayed quite so hard.

From day 1 Baby Girl has proven to be exactly like me. I want to throw her out the window daily. Someone once told me, before I had a child of my own, that “sure you love them to pieces but sometimes you want to throw them in the trash can.” I seriously laughed. I had no idea how true it was. (And she said it in a Danish accent, which just made it that much funnier – and proves that people all over the world feel the same way about their progeny.) Baby girl is passionate. And headstrong. And boy does she get frustrated when she doesn’t get her own way, or can’t figure something out quickly. If the blocks aren’t all color side up in their little wagon she will stop what she is doing when she notices this, and sit down and put them right. Did I mention she’s 26 months old?

She will line the crayons up all in a row. Perfectly. She will line up her books and her videos. She doesn’t mind a mess but it has to be HER mess, her way. God forbid you try to change something she has decided should be a certain way. A friend who was babysitting her, hesitated as she was walking out the door and said “she doesn’t take suggestions well.” I laughed. I knew.

This is my only child. I was almost 39 before she was born. I was absolutely not prepared for this. I had everything planned out, finished my To-Do list, and was READY for her birth-day. Then she was born and I realized I had not ONE TIME thought about afterwards. I think motherhood must come easier if you are younger. Your ways aren’t your ways yet. You go with the flow. You have lower expectations. I could be wrong but I think starting to parent at almost 40 is so much harder than parenting when you are younger. I find it hard to get down on the floor to play. My mind is a million miles away. I have my own business to run. I have not “played” in 25 + years. I’m too damn tired to think, let alone figure out fun places to take a two year old. We stay home a lot. We go outside when we can’t stand it anymore. Thankfully we have horses so there’s some distraction there. We have two swings. I HATE swinging. But I do it anyway.

I love my Baby Girl. I love her to the moon and back. But sometimes I still want to throw her in the trash can. If you get offended by God or by cuss words you won’t want to follow my blog. I write this blog only to give myself some relief. A place to let it all out. I’ll bet there are other 40-something “new” moms who feel my pain… who will understand where I am coming from and commiserate. Moms who want to be the kind of moms who bake cookies and shit. And yet realize they are the kind of moms who say “bake cookies and shit.”