The Crumbs of the Mom I Once Was
BY KAILYN RHINEHART
Photo Courtesy | Kailyn Rhinehart
My toddler doesn’t sleep.
I know – plenty of toddlers don’t sleep. Maybe there are some unicorn toddlers out there who lull themselves to sleep each night at 7 p.m. and wake up a full twelve hours later, happy as a clam (I’m told those exist). However, my child is no unicorn. In this season of life, he simply does not sleep.
He did at one point. In fact, he slept pretty well his first year. I got one of those happy, tired babies. I would swaddle him, arms out the way he preferred, my hips dipping in tune with the hum of whatever song popped into my head. Timing it perfectly, I’d rock him until he was kind of sleepy, but not all the way. Then I would, ever so slightly, dangle him into his bassinet; hesitating, before tiptoeing away.
I’m here. Shh, don’t worry, my lingering body seemed to whisper to him.
His eyes would flutter a little to look at me before finally closing. My feet doing the backing-up tiptoe victory dance all moms do – you know the one. And just like that, his baby brain dreamt of whatever it is they dream of. Safety, softly, calmly. He was easy to put to bed and usually stayed asleep all night. A victory for this not-quite-new, not-yet-veteran mama.
Now, two years later, I have retired my victory dances, my baby sleep celebrations, and flawlessly timed routines. I have exchanged the hip dips and easily shushed newborn baby for a frantic, clingy toddler. The once sleepy, happy child has pulled a full-fledged Freaky Friday with a two-year-old who spends forty-five minutes screaming at the top of his lungs because it sounds more fun than sleeping. How? Why?
Sometimes in the morning, he’ll come into our bed – a habit I swore up and down I would never encourage, scoffing at those who let children into their beds at all hours of the night. Before him, my lips would curve into a smile when someone insinuated such an intrusive concept. My eyes internally rolled, while my head nodded politely. My words melted into pity for the poor person in front of me, telling me how their kid wouldn’t sleep through the night. My body filled to the brim with all the knowledge I confidently thought I possessed. Oh, if only I knew.
It is much easier to have opinions on raising hypothetical children.
I wanted to first explain why there’s a toddler awake, eating in my bed at 5 a.m. The same toddler who firmly committed himself to the habit we swore we’d never “allow.” The one awake at all hours of the night, somehow functioning fine the following day. While my husband and I were nowhere near fully functioning adults after a night of toddler wrangling and broken sleep. The same child, with that same habit, has allowed us to create an additional problem. The other problem.
The granola bar problem.
My toddler’s favorite breakfast is a granola bar. The ones with the sticky middle and some form of fruit-like substance. Maybe it’s considered jelly? This loosely defined “jelly” smears into the sheets, leaving sticky, greasy imprints. My sweet, darling boy leaves these globs of granola bar filling on our sheets. So, I get to wash the sheets multiple times a week – a tiresome task to repeat more frequently than my usual seven-day time frame. Sometimes my son comes into our bed and goes back to sleep at 2 or 3 a.m. But sometimes he is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to greet the day at an unreasonable hour. We are not.
The bars also leave a trail of crumbs. The crumbs stay there until the following evening when, with a dramatic swoosh, we brush them away, knowing full-well the same ones will appear again tomorrow morning. But I continue to do what any other parent would do; the tired parents trying to survive in the middle of a tough season of parenthood. The same parents who recognize these stages and ages. The seasons begin, inflame, then eventually fizzle out. As quickly as they began, all is well. Everything is reset and forgiven. Ideally, forgotten.
I hand him the fake-fruit-filled bar.
We have been immersed in this endless, exhausting season for weeks. I am half-asleep, hungover from my desperate late-night attempt to have time to myself: binging Netflix and eating food I don’t have to share, knowing full-well what the night and morning will bring. I thank 10 p.m. me for grabbing a granola bar on the way into the bedroom and placing it reluctantly on the corner of my nightstand – a white flag in a colorful foil wrapper.
I know what the morning will bring, and even if it doesn’t, I am prepared.
The next morning, my son calmly eats a bar in my bed at 5:15 a.m. Rolling over, I brush the stray hair from his face, take the empty wrapper from his hand, and set it on my nightstand to throw away later. I waver in and out of sleeplessness as he lays next to me; the crumbs flaking off onto my sheets. I can feel his eyes scanning my face.
I’m still here. Shh, don’t worry, my presence tells him.
My pre-parent self would be aghast at such a horrendous thing I am allowing. For what? A little sleep? Yes, a little extra sleep.
I give my son a granola bar in my bed to cling to a few more minutes of sleep.
***
As a parent, we change when our seasons do. Like chameleons, we shape-shift to match our surroundings. Sometimes we are the parent with the kid who sleeps through the night, greeting each day with a well-rested smile. Other times, we unashamedly hand our kid a granola bar at 5 a.m. for ten more minutes of sleep.
We move through these seasons. Not always with ease – the path through parenthood is never linear. We flow from surviving in the early days to flourishing when they gain independence. We lurch forward, then backward with each tantrum, sleep regression, and trial. We celebrate when we successfully ebb through a hard season. Often, we don’t even realize when we arrive on the other side of a difficult stage. Among the rhythms of babyhood, toddlerhood, and childhood, we have to give ourselves grace. A lot of grace.
Pre-parent me had very little grace to offer. My list of “I Will Nevers” barely held up the first few months, with the rest fading away over the years. I’m still the same person, and yet, I am so much different from the one I was before.
Like the crumbs scattered on my bed every morning by my toddler, I shed the remnants of the girl from the past, melting the shadow of who I was before. I brush away the crumbs of the mother I once was. This one is new; as are the fears and failures, lessons, and frustrations. But so is the joy and the freedom that allows her to shed what once was – the guilt, the lack of humility, and the absence of grace.
Before the lack of sleep, and all those darn crumbs.
KAILYN RHINEHART is a wife and mama to two wild blond babes, currently living in Missouri. She is an avid list-maker, freelance writer, and consumer of coffee in any form. With a degree in Early Childhood Education and Psychology, she is a kindergarten teacher turned mama-writer. A New Englander at heart, she and her family live wherever the military sends them.