A Look At the Other Half of My Life: Parenting...

"Dear God, make me a bird, so I can fly far. Far, far away."
"If you are a bird, I will be the tree that you come home to."
-- an odd amalgamation of Forest Gump (film) and The Runaway Bunny

In dealing with my toddler lately, I have reached several conclusions.

I love him, and his squishy, curly be-mopped self.
He must be smarter than me.
He better be glad he's cute and smart, because he drives me to drink heavily in the early afternoon and leave him in the doorsteps of strangers. The latter circumstance would undoubtedly end in the same strain as The Ransom of Red Chief, in which a boy is kidnapped, then returned to his parents. The recipients of my child would think he was cute at first, but within two, maybe four hours at the most, they'd be searching for me to just take him BACK.

I say most of this in jest. I'm reminded of the old quip, "The best revenge is living well." Or maybe, "Fight fire with fire..." Heck, I don't know. I find myself at the end of my rope lately. I have an almost two year old who still needs to be rocked to sleep for both nap and bed time. And taking a nap only happens maybe 30% of the time. And... and... he's slowly discovering that escape from his crib is possible. Because dealing with him in a toddler bed is going to be easier... ha!

For the first year, I listened to my instincts and took what I still consider to be the high road: my child has never cried himself to sleep alone in his crib. I *want* him to know he can rely on me. But when his 35 pound toddler frame is thrashing against my injured shoulder, when I really need him to be at his best and he's fighting sleep like a six month old, I realize it's time to put up some boundaries. We've started creating boundaries in other areas... but what we've been doing here was working so well until Paul went to Hawaii and left a certain little boy in the throes of major separation anxiety, we thought things would work themselves out.

I don't even know where to begin. At this point, cry it out (CIO) pretty much won't work. Even if it would, I still don't think I could possibly apply it. It seems cruel. However, I look at my friends' parenting relationships and realize they don't have sleep issues any longer, and I wonder what I'm supposed to do. The current system isn't working; continuing in the same dysfunctional way will only produce more of the same problems. Parenting the hard way is just that: hard. And emotionally exhausting. After I've dealt with nap time, I'm completely zapped most days. Not to mention dealing with a child who hasn't had enough rest for weeks and is surly and ridiculous as a result.

Ideas (other than CIO) are welcome. I'm tired.