TIMELINE... Reasons NOT to Give Your Toddler Caffeine

This is about 2 weeks old so the memory is fuzzy...

BUT

5:00 PM... Dinner Time

Kai and I had a series of Mama days due to the Passover holiday falling in the middle of the week. Since I hosted the quasi-seder this year, I stayed home from work giving Kai a whole lot of Mama time. By night 2 we had a fridge full of leftovers and the oportunity for an early dinner, so, I began preparation and asked Kai what he wanted to drink.

"Tea Mama. I want tea."

"OK Baby. You want your tea?", I replied referring to his caffeine free chai tea that he likes to make for himself in the orange shaped ceramic mugs that my sister gave him.

"No Mama. I want green tea."

Now here is where I had a "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!!!" lapse. For some reason I didn't bat an eye and said, "Sure honey." assuming that green tea was caffeine free as well.

*Editor's note. It is 5:00 in the evening. Bed time is at 8:00*

I make Kai his tea, honey and milk like he likes it, then serve him left over duck and latkes.

5:45 PM... Half an hour later or so

Kai is FLYING around the apartment. At one point he spends 15 minutes running up and down the hall from his room to the living room until he crashes headlong in to the kitchen door frame, bounces off, shakes his head, proceeds to run again.

I begin to chase after him to see if there is any blood or sign of a concussion.

7:00 PM... Bed time ritual begins...or should anyway

After corralling him in his room by force, having thrown him over my shoulder, sat on him to get him changed, and held him down on the potty to pee and poo after the threat to pee on me became a reality, I finally have him convinced that reading books and getting in to bed is a good thing. Book reading time comes. We sit in our blue chair like we do every night, rock back and forth, read books, then get in to bed. Kai sits up. "Mama. I'm not tired." "Well honey" I reply, "I have to go make your lunch for tomorrow. Play with your toys until you get sleepy." I leave for the kitchen to prepare for the next day. Kai spends the next 2 hours getting out of bed, coming in to find me to ask, "Mama, what you doing?"

10:00 PM... Mom has lost her patience and desperately wants to go to bed herself

Finally I threaten to close the door to his room, which of course is an open invitation to a monser mauling from a 2 year old's perspective. Kai whines from his bed, "Mama! I not sleepy!" I reply by telling him to work it out himself, play with his stuffed animals but I'm going to bed and he's not to get out of bed again. Harumph! Stern. Tough. Mean. I sit and listen in on the baby monitor for the next 45 minutes until I FINALLY hear him snoring. I go in, turn out his night light, turn him around in his bed so his head is on the pillow, not his feet, and tuck him in.

11:30 PM

YAY! Finally I can get to bed!

1:00 AM... Sleep walking toddler

I wake up to a Clock Work Orange like torture with Skeezix at my side. Instead of a lollipop there's a stuffed dog, but same image. Half a face, little nose just brimming over the edge of the bed with 2 chubby hands at each side, only one is pulling my eyelids open.

"Mama. I'm awake."

Staggering upwards, I take the drugged up little tyke by the hand, walk him silently back in to his room, tuck him in, and sit. Patiently. Waiting. For him to settle back to sleep. Then I head back to my bed for another attempt at sleep only having 1 hour so far.

4:30 AM... Naked toddler

Please see above at 1:00 AM, only add to the image that Skeezix is now naked. Head to toe, in the buff, pulling my eyelids open, saying, "Mama! I cold!"

"Why did you take your clothes off baby?"

"I was dreaming that I was sick"

"So you took your clothes off?"

"Yeah."

Well OK then! I get up again, get him dressed (at least get a shirt and a diaper back on him), get him in my bed and under the covers where he immediately proceeds to assault me in his attempts to nurse, then do the whirling dervish routine completely unconscious of the fact that he's leaving welts and bruises, let alone cracking ribs with his feet.

5:30 AM... Mom has had 3 hours sleep total.

Finally he sleeps! Unfortunately it's with his face pressed against mine, mouth wide open, snoring. No man has ever survived doing this in my bed, yet here I am in love, once again looking for an alternative solution rather than toss the offender out of the room to fend for himself in sleepless oblivion. I stagger upwards and out in to the void that is our apartment thinking that having a cup of coffee and starting our day is a better alternative to co-sleeping with a caffeine hopped up baby, eye his toddler bed on my way to the kitchen, and fall in to it, blissfully falling in to sleep 6 inches off the ground with my feet dangling to the floor.

8:00 AM... Start our day and OMG! We're late!

Skeezix arrives only towering above me this time, all 36 inches of him a giant to the 6 inch drop of the toddler bed I found my final 2 hours of sleep on. "Mama. Why you in my bed?!" I wan to start our day Mama!" Hands me a yogurt drink to open whining, "Mama! Get up! You're in my bed!"

DO NOT EVER GIVE YOUR CHILD CAFFEINE! THIS IS A WARNING TO YOU ALL!