Blue Nee-Nee II

B so nicely inquired this week about how things have been since the blue nee-nee went bye-bye. In short, it sucks. The actual weaning process was surprisingly easily and fast. Nee-nee disappeared on Christmas Day after Duc hadn’t used it all day (no nap=no nee-nee). He fell asleep in the car shortly after leaving my parent’s house and he didn’t miss it. Or so I thought. At 1:30 AM he woke up screaming and crying. He was inconsolable and nothing I did helped. Finally around 6 am he dozed for a while before getting up around 7:30. For the next few days he inquired about blue nee-nee and asked that I search for it. Ever the dutiful mother I promised to do my best.

What I didn’t realize at the time was the extent that he relied on his pacifier. That was his comfort when even I could not help. Friends used to marvel at the ease in which I was able to get him to bed. Essentially I held him and rocked him for a few minutes with the pacifier, put him down and didn’t hear a peep out of him. Now it feels like January 2009 when we first arrived home from Vietnam. Weekend naps are almost non-existent. It is nothing for him to scream and whine and cry during his two hour nap period. Duc is the kind of child that REALLY needs a nap—sometimes two. Without naps he becomes destructive and more than a little mean and at his size he is force to be reckoned with.

It’s been three weeks today since I took nee-nee away and still we struggle. In the last two nights I have slept about three hours per night because Duc is sleeping in my bed. He sleeps in my bed even when I am not in bed with him. We have never been a co-sleeping family so this is a struggle for me.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t like change. I think because I am at an age in my life that so little changes it always astounds me that he is changing each and every day. How is that possible? I am struggling to learn that my parenting has to change to match his physical and emotional growth. I think I deluded myself into thinking that because he has been so advanced in his physical development and what he can do that his emotional growth would be slower. I have found that isn’t the case. On Christmas Eve we were driving to my parent’s house and he started wailing in the back seat. I asked him what was wrong and he replied, “I’m mad at you, Mommy”.

“Why are you mad at me, Duc?”

“Because.”

“Honey, ‘because’ is not a good enough reason. If you are mad at me you need to tell me why.”

“Because you won’t pick up my toy and give it to me.”

He tells me when he is happy, when is mad and when he is sad. Sometimes he isn’t able to verbalize why he feels these emotions, only that he feels them.

And so my parenting is adjusting. He needs me more now that he can’t rely on nee-nee. More time. More hugs and kisses. More time sitting next to him while he plays with his choo choos. More me. But I’ll be honest with you, I’m exhausted.