Tried and True Sleep Deprivation Guide for a Three Year Old

At first I was afraid... I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live till 2am with Cub by my side. But then I planned a special night that I prayed wouldn't go wrong, and I grew strong, yeah I knew we'd get along... And I Survived, yeah I survived, Yeah Yeah!

Yeah... I may still be a little sleep deprived/delirious myself, but figured inquiring minds wanted to know.... So here it is, should you ever need it, a tried and true method for depriving a tot of sleep with minimal meltdowns.

First things first. Take a nap. Counter-intuitive, one might think... well this is not for the tot, this was for mama of course, I needed my wits about me if I was gonna pull this off! It reminded me of college days, well just the napping to prepare for a night out part... and maybe the IHOP stop at 11pm.

One thing I should have remembered from my day's as a waitress was that service takes a marked decline during the hour prior to closing, as all employees seethe with anger that they have to wait on you.... and remind you every five minutes when they will be closing. As we moved from game to game at Chucky Cheese, they politely reminded me the games would be turning off soon, however, Cub's continued shrill scream of "This one, This one next mom", buffeted their remarks, and we shut the place down at 10.

I got a little concerned with heavy eyes as we drove to Barnes and Noble, but he quickly revived when he saw the train set. We played, read books, performed impromptu skits on their story time stage, and played hide and seek in the stacks of books. They hated me. Well, it was either hate, or extreme judgement at my obvious lack in parenting skills for having the audacity to take my three year old out to play at 11pm. Which was my reason for saying aloud multiple times at all locations throughout the evening, "the Dr. is going to be so proud at how late you were able to stay up". I think next time I'll just make a t-shirt that says, "We'd rather be in bed, this is mandatory"... it'd be easier.

After shutting them down at 11, we headed to IHOP for a quick ice-cream sundae before the movie started. There was a table of police officers there. I then thought about making t-shirt that said "I'm not a wack-job... this is mandatory".

We finally made it to the theater... I was so proud. It was our last stop of the night, the end was in sight! It also just so happened to be the debut for Hangover 2, so there was a good crowd, and I'm pretty sure EVERYONE thought I was taking Cub to see that. This was confirmed when we got to the ticket counter and she automatically said "The Hangover"?

I gave her an incredulous look, however, when I did the slow, emphatic, turn toward Caleb as if to indicate... What are you thinking, of course we're here to see Kung Fu Panda 2, I saw the blood shot eyes of my tired guy, and thought... why wouldn't she think that... we both LOOK like we've got a Hangover... So I politely said no, we'll be seeing Kung Fun Panda, took our tickets and headed in.

Caleb did great for about an hour... with a little whining, which I was able to curtail with some gummies... Again, I felt death glares bore into the back of my head, as there is no volume control on Cub, so even asking for gummies or "what was that?", "Why's he there", "Who's that guy"... were all quite audible :).

I couldn't have been prouder of my little man, true to form he was awesome, and made it all the way till ~1:15 before melt-down stage started to initiate. We left before the movie ended, and I kept him talking in the car. He warmed my heart when he said "I had a really great time on our date mom"... best little dude in the world!

To buy a little more time, we stopped off at CVS to take our blood pressure and play with the canes, and at exactly 2am I tucked him in for the night... He was asleep at 2:01.

Kev struggled through a little more whining this morning, but they headed off for their own date... back to IHOP for some breakfast.

Heading to our appointment at 12:30, where hopefully our efforts will have paid off and he can just fall asleep and take his much deserved nap. I'll keep ya'll posted when we know more from the results. Thanks SO much for all the prayers, I know last night wouldn't have gone NEAR as smoothly without them!