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Best kids are those who go to sleep early

Could any of sanctimonious child-birth supporters guarantee that my baby will be born in his pyjamas?

1

It is 9:30 in the evening. The kids are asleep. After a long and hard workday, before you have a cup of coffee with your wife, you look in on the little ones, sleeping snugly in their beds, and your heart fills with joy. What beautiful kids I have, you think. What precious gifts.

 

I will do anything for my cubs. I will go to the end of the world if they ask me to. In your mind's eye, you can see yourself running to visit them on base with pots filled with mom's cooking. You are there for them every step of the way. What a heart-gripping idyllic picture it is. Those sleeping children are the reason you live.

 

2

Suddenly, for a moment there, one of them raises his head. He is merely turning in his sleep, but your heart sinks. You are terrified. Is he waking up? Will he soon get out of bed? In one fell swoop, the child you would do anything for makes keeping him asleep your sole purpose in life.

 

He becomes a demon you must not let out of the bottle. You freeze. You start praying that he stay asleep. I love him so, you think, why does he have to spoil everything and wake up? Why screw up what was going to be a perfect evening, the peaceful cup of coffee I was going to have, the only hour I have to myself all day?

 

3

Slowly and painstakingly you tip-toe out of the room toward your freedom. Your heart is pounding with fear that you might knock something down and make the noise that will wake them.

 

As soon as you are out of the room, you silence the entire neighborhood, switch off the power of the entire building, shut the windows, and sit in a dark corner trembling with fear, not moving an inch. You sit there for hours, praying to God Almighty: Our father who art in heaven, please make these children, the apples of my eye whom I adore and badly want to spend time with, sleep some more.

 

4

Yes, it is terrifying, but there are times when all a parent wants is for his charming little children - his precious God-sent gifts, who give him reason to live, his own flesh and blood and essence - to sleep some more.

 

Sure you want to see your children thrive, succeed, create, play, and discover new worlds, but most of all you want them to sleep. Then, you can look at them in bed, fall in love with them again, remember that they are your world, wish them the world's riches, and silently slip away to celebrate with a cup of coffee in the living room.

 

5

I am not a bad father. I gave them lots of hugs, plenty of attention, much care, but I would lie if I said that I never had a crisis in which I desperately searched their bodies for the switch that would put them to sleep or at least on hold for a while.

 

Several weeks ago, at around 11 o'clock at night, Aviv was painting in the kitchen, Yehuda was playing soccer on the balcony, and I sat in front of my computer and desperately Googled something like "how to make children sleep."

 

At 1:30, I was already searching for "a sleeping pill for children that is legal and causes no damage, but keeps children from staying up till late because, come on, evening time is supposed to be mine and I need some peace and quiet too, and it is not easy for me, not just for them."

 

As soon as I hit "search," the phone rang. A guy from Google was on the line, trying to find out where I live, the bastard.

 

6

All around me, I see parents desperately trying to make their little children go to sleep. What giant efforts they make! They rock them, cradle them, hold them straight and upside down, drive them in their stroller or car, sing to them, tell them long stories, take them to ride horses and make them dizzy, give them hot milk, give them special teas. So much effort just to get the kids to go to sleep!

 

Yet, realizing that they have that power, the children start playing for time. Sure, they will fall asleep eventually, but we have to pay first: We want juice, three stories, a lullaby, to watch a video, have a cookie, more juice, another story, sit with us until we fall asleep. Why? Because. There are no free lunches.

 

7

What can a parent do to make his kid sleep when nighttime comes? There is no effective punishment that we can use today. We do not want to hit him. Yelling at him is verbal abuse. Taking things away might cause him serious mental damage.

 

The only option we have is to call a time-out. Super Nanny said, give them a time-out. Send them to their room for a while. Some idea! It is a disaster of an idea! Clearly, when the kids take a time-out, they regroup, plan their next moves, choose new forms of offense, discuss their defense. Does this Super Nanny even have children?

 

8

There are moments, God forgive me, when I want to trade places with Yitzhak Kadman of the children's lobby. Let him deal with my waking kids, if he loves children so much. And now Efrat is talking to me about having a third child.

 

9

Can you not see, I ask Efrat, how dangerous a third child could be? Their team will be larger than ours. God, they are two and we are two, and this will give them the majority. Do you not see that? Where is your intel? Do you not realize that as soon as they feel strong enough, they would stage a coup here and make it official that they never go to sleep again?

 

Why do you think the USSR crumbled? The Communists also once believed that no one could ever beat them. We are here on borrowed time, my love. We have to put the children to sleep as early as possible. They must sleep as long as it is possible, or else they might start getting ideas, very bad ideas.

 

10

I love children and I would gladly bring another cutie to this world, but could any of the sanctimonious child-birth supporters guarantee that my baby will be born in his pyjamas, say hi, and go right to sleep? We must think ahead. We have to consider every option, people. I am all for another child, but what if my baby is born awake?

 

Good God

Sukkot is over, young Mr. Daum. Looking from up here, I can see tens of thousands of settlers breaking up - on their own accord and without a struggle - the illegal huts they built outside their homes. Finally, something to please the Israeli left.

 


פרסום ראשון: 10.16.06, 22:26
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