On Tuesday night, Caroline called me into her room about five different times for reasons ranging from being thirsty to wanting to discuss the gross national product of Southeast Asia. Around 3 a.m. I was ready to flush the baby monitor down the toilet.
The next morning in my sleep deprived haze, I came up with a fabulous idea. What I needed was sleep and what would get me sleep was some type of bribe, but since bribe is such a dirty word, let’s call it a “reward system”.
Anyway, like a desperate door to door salesman, I pitched the idea of a calendar with stickers for every night that Caroline slept through the night without calling for me.
Oh! The excitement! “A calendar! With stickers! I won’t call for you Mama! I’ll sleep all night! I’ll see you in the morning! Can we hang my calendar right here? I love my calendar!”
I put her to bed that night and reminded her about the new system. She assured me that she was ready and couldn’t wait to get her princess sticker in the morning. I walked out of her room feeling just a little smug at my brilliance.
Cut to 3:30 a.m. when I was awakened out of a dead sleep by the sound of “Mama, come get me. MAMA! Come get me!”
I stumbled into her room and asked her “Why are you calling me? What do you need?”
She said, “I just wanted to tell you that I don’t want a sticker”.