The next stage

I didn't sleep great last night, until about 6:00 AM. Usually if I haven't had some good sleep by this time, I'm done for. After 6:00 AM, sleep is a lost cause because Sumner's already up and although he is really quiet my mommy-dar is aware he's no longer asleep and the quality of my sleep changes. (What will I do when he lives half-way around the world from me and is awake when I am supposed to be sleeping?) If Sumner reading in the living room doesn't rouse me, Ramona does. Over the last few months, she's started climbing into bed between 5 and 6 and falling back asleep wrapped around me. When she first climbs in, I am too disorientated to say or do anything to stop her and within a minute she's sound asleep. I keep sleeping, but again, it’s the quality of the sleep that counts. I am annoyed that I let her fall asleep in my bed and I feel trapped. My sleep is tense and troubled.

This morning a small miracle happened. Ramona and Sumner woke up at the same time and it was early...about 5:45 AM. Ramona did not rush into our room to cuddle with me. Sumner read to her for about a half and hour. Then he ushered her into the kitchen, made her breakfast, and moved her chair right next to his so that they could continue reading while eating. Finally he moved them into the living room and turned on the TV (a skill Ramona does not possess) and they watched it for a half an hour. And now for the real shocker: they shut off the TV and played together for another 20 minutes or so. I heard them wake up at 6:00 and on some level I was aware of the rooms they were in, but I slept peacefully. I wasn't worried a battle would break out. I wasn't fretting that they needed to be fed. I wasn’t anticipating my sleep being disturbed. I slept until 8:00. It really was a miracle.

This signified to me the beginning of a new stage of parenting. This stage includes sleeping in. It includes my kids learning to serve themselves and clean up after themselves. It includes my kids entertaining each other and themselves.

A sidebar: It also includes the word piss. The four-year-old Sumner still wore diapers, but he didn't know about other names for pee. I had to get up when he got up when he was four, but he also didn't shout "pissin'" it in the middle of a walk in the Arboretum, which he did last week. This was embarrassing, yet then was a part of me that wanted to smirk.

Sumner proved that he is getting older and wiser tonight. It was near bedtime. I was tired. I had a short fuse. Ramona flung something away from her where she was sitting and under my foot. I tripped and shouted, "RAMONA!!!!" Then I took a breath and said, "I am sorry, but you can't just throw stuff about like that."

Sumner was supposed to be taking his dirty clothes to the hamper. He paused and said, "Can I just explain to Ramona that you're not that mad? Ramona, Mom's not that mad. It's just bedtime and she's grouchy," he said while rubbing her back. Could this be the brother that murmurs about wanting to “break her to bits”? Did he really just hand out how-to-manage-you-mother advice?

Hello, glimmer of maturity. For years my mom has been saying that I am more mature than her. Is that what the next stage is all about? Will they both gang up on us and revolt? I better brace myself.