He used to sleep so well. We’d read I Spy about 47 times, he’d drink his warm milk, I’d wrap him in his snuggly blue “bit” (that’s Kamran’s word for blanket) and then I’d place him in his crib and blow him kisses as I walked out of his room. He’d start humming and giggling almost immediately and fall asleep within 15 minutes.

 That was last week.

Now he screams, scratches my face, shouts “No! No! No! No! No!” (you get the picture) and “Out! Out! Out! Out!”, throws the “bit” at me and says “All done” over and over again. Oh and he rubs his eyes while this drama plays out. It may be 7:30 p.m. but Kamran isn’t interested in sleep. What used to be a wonderful, cuddly ritual has turned into a Gladiator event with me dodging his pudgy hands. Oh he hit my eye. Oh, he’s got hold of my earring. Yikes! 

I could  use some advice on how to deal with his sudden resistance to sleeping.

By the way, my 20-month-old boy is well-fed, fresh diaper, comfy cotton jammies, well-ventilated room, his favourite toys are nearby, skin is moisturized.

 Help, please!  

Last week we were noodling around Laguna Beach. This week we are freezing in Southern Ontario. Not so bad for me as most of my work is done in a computer. Inside.

Kamran, on the other hand, joined a new daycare this week and has to go out into Siberia twice a day.

The daycare is a life-sized kaleidoscope - cutout snowflakes hanging from the ceiling with bendy-bobby string, foam toys with tiny smushed fingerprint imprints on them (this is what passes for art at 19 months), dry macaroni and rice in the texture table, a few colourful rugs scattered about, and a dozen rosy-cheeked chunky kids in each room.

Since he’s only been going there for three days (and was at a different daycare at Harbourfront until November) he’s a bit weepy in the a.m. when I drop him off. I duck into the hallway and after a minute or two  I hear him asking for “cee-wee-ul and appo”. Translation “cereal” and “apple”. He’s confident and outgoing and I’m OK to leave once I hear his husky voice giving orders in choppy toddler fashion.

I am aware that he belongs to me just as much as he belongs to Canada and the U.S. I carried him for 39 weeks and four days and he’s holding my DNA but he’s not really mine. I was just the transportation, his plane, his train, his automobile. He will breathe different air, have different conversations, see a different world, love differently than I have loved and, oh God, I can hardly type it, feel the blisters of loss. But not too soon, God, please not too soon. 

I can see the changes already in his imagination and joy as he experiments with new things - the snow, icicles, a toy plane, a fat crayon, a textured book, my sandals, and how he plays with his cousins and how his laugh erupts from somewhere deep in his belly and then every molecule of his body is joyful. He is new and I am decaying. 

It’s -30C outside (serves me right for leaving SoCal in January!) and there are icicles in my brain.

Just five more hours before I go collect him from his colourful playland.

My God, give me mountains to climb and strength to climb them.

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