Parenting Like an Olympian

Here I stand, in sweatpants and a sleeveless tee, standing guard at my own bedroom door. Silent and stoic I refuse to give in. But it's 1:45am and I'm tired. My opponent is giving it their all. It's the turning point in the game. The next moments are crucial to victory and both sides feel it.

Me vs. 3-year-old. For the gold.

Lilly, my eldest of two daughters, has spent the last week basically refusing to sleep at night. She fears us being gone, especially mommy. And Allison is tired. So tired. The kind of tired you can see in her face and hear in her voice. It's time for me to rescue my damsel. My task: let her sleep.

We've tried reasoning with Lilly, threatening her with turning her toddler bed back to a crib, and even putting a baby gate at her door. Tonight's method: putting her back in her bed without saying a word, as many times as necessary. It's a plan that should work in the long run, but may take time to take effect.

I didn't anticipate the kid's fortitude.

At bed time it took about an hour and putting her back in her bed more times than I could count. She finally succumbed to sleep around 9:40. She was up again at 10:45, 12:40, 1:45, and sometime again later. At 1:45 I wasn't sure if I could stay with the plan. I wanted to speak, to say something to her to tell her how tired I was and that she had to go to bed. I wanted to YELL!

But then I thought of Team USA.

Yes, that Team USA.

I could relate to them. They claimed to be the next "Dream Team", an unstoppable force of all that is good with America. I had began the night with a similar resolve. I was going to be more patient than my kid could stand and she would give in to sleeping. Lilly was no Nigeria. She was giving me the Spain or even Lithuania treatment. Lilly thought she had a chance. For a moment, I thought she might, too.

Then I started thinking like a champion; like an Olympian.

If you watched most of the Team USA basketball games you likely noticed a trend. The games were usually competitive during the first half, but USA pulled away in the third quarter. The competition thought they could win, but Team USA knew they would win. The US team was bigger, faster, stronger, deeper, and simply better than any other team. They knew if they followed the game plan gold would be theirs.

Almost a week prior was our "first half" where Lilly came at us unexpectedly with this whole no sleep thing. Allison and I were reeling. We survived, really.

But now we had a plan for victory, we just needed to stick to it.

At 1:45am I decided to think like an Olympian, to know that I have what it takes to win. The plan will work.

Survive first. Make a plan and battle through to victory. Some days will be easy, a Nigeria game, but some nights you'll have to fight off a tenacious Tunisia in order to win. You can do it.