The dessert saga

I've concluded that the kid will never have dessert again.

In the last week, she's quit eating and started demanding sugary drinks and desserts.  By "quit eating," I mean that she eats less than half of her normal meal, declares herself full, and then whines for a cookie, or some candy, or the graham crackers, or whatever.  Sometimes there's even zero wait time from "I'm SO FULL I just don't have room in my tummy for any more food" to "Can I have a cookie? You promised I could have a cookie!"  The trouble is that it's technically accurate, we did say at the start of the day that IF she behaved, she could have a cookie.  Eating three bites of dinner doesn't qualify as full, nor does it qualify as well behaved when she screams for 20 minutes about her cookie demands.

My thought on the "no more desserts ever" line is that there will be no negotiations.  None.  All desserts are verboten and it is simple: no, not today, not tomorrow, never.  The adults will have to be sneakier about desserts, but we can be sneaky and have our tiny amounts of sweets too.

While I'm taking away things that are making my life a fiasco, I think I'll rule out week night TV as well.  We currently have a TV black-out time of 6pm, so in theory we get 2 good hours of wind-down before bed, but it gets fudged.  Maybe she starts some episode at 5:45, so it runs over a bit.  Maybe she doesn't get home until 6pm and we are tired and she won't play alone so we put on something to enjoy some scream-free time.

I am fed up with the saucy demands for "couldn't you just spoil me, just this once?"  Perhaps, if it were only ever actually once.  Once becomes "but the last time, you said I could..." and from there, we move into the land of Only Eats Graham Crackers and Marshmallows.

As much as it is helpful to understand that this is a phase, and an awkward one where the kid is starting to understand a tiny bit of what "we can't play with you right now, go play by yourself" means, it still irritates me.  If you listen to her caregivers (besides at daycare), this kid is a saint compared to other kids.  I expect decompression when we get her home, but to have only decompression and no even moderately well-behaved kid moments is hard.  Gah.  At daycare, occasionally a saint and occasionally trouble, so a pretty normal kid.

It's a lot for me to expect some of that normal to happen at home.  I think it's time to try even harder to get her to bed earlier because we are all happier if she sleeps properly.  If she wails herself to sleep over the cookie in 5 minutes, she is clearly overly tired.

In the realm of the dessert saga and not sleeping, I am considering giving up on the idea of sleep entirely  I mean, insomnia is one thing but pregnancy-augmented insomnia is just astounding.  I get tired enough to fall asleep only to wake moments later in agonizing pain from staying put too long... amazing!  Then I'm wide awake when the spouse's 5:30am alarm goes off, sure as shootin.  I stay vaguely exhausted all day and never tired enough to nap.  Sigh.  Terrible rom coms and looking like a raccoon for me.  The spouse turns up sometimes and asks what I'm watching, and I have no idea.  None at all.  It's all some peculiar series of convoluted twists until the destined couple gets together.  I admit to choosing them mostly based on if I like the the lead actress or not (Kelly MacDonald yes, some blond whose name I can't think of, no).  I should probably lay off the desserts too.