Uh Huh

Olivia has taken to answer questions in the affirmative with an, “Uh huh.”

As in, “Olivia, do you want a waffle for breakfast?”

Olivia will utter, “Uh huh.” The nod that accompanies her little throat utterance confirms that she does, in fact, want a waffle for breakfast.

It’s cute. And yet…it’s also slightly annoying. I’d prefer she continue to use the “Yesh.” Of yesterday (okay, last week, whatever.)

So we’re in the ‘uh huh’ phase.

I have to admit that this is better than the infant stage, where we suffered the screaming phase for several months. Or Alyssa’s phase when she was four to eight weeks old. Every single evening she fussed from 4pm until 9pm. Nothing pleased her. And the thing was, she never really cried, she just made this horrible, fussy sound.

But one night when she was nine weeks old or so, I realized we’d made it through the fussing hours without the fussing. The phase was over.

The thing about phases is that they end and new ones begin and we, as parents, have no real control over these phases. We can try and change the behavior that is accompanying the phase but in the end, we have to weather the phase and come out the other side.

I’ve been in the bad sleep phase forever.

I know, I know, this is such a boring topic because I’ve bitched about it so many times I can’t even stand it myself.

And yet, I know this is a phase. Surely O won’t be waking me up four times a night when she’s nine or twelve or seventeen. Right? Oh dear heaven, please tell me I’m right.

This morning even the cuteness of an ‘uh huh’ couldn’t stop me from snapping at her when she woke me up for the fourth time at 4:30am. She woke up at 1am asking me to take off her nasty pull-up. She woke up at 2am wanting me to scratch her back. (For the record, no scratching occurred.) She woke me up at 3am asking me to let her lay with me. She asked for a tissue at 4am.

Finally, at 4:30 she rolled over and asked me when we were going to get up.

I’d had it. I told her we weren’t getting up because wasn’t MORNING yet and that she needed to not talk to me anymore while it was still dark.

Harsh? Maybe. But I’m not wallowing in mommy guilt over this one. Girlfriend is FIVE years old. 5p- or not, she knows that night time is for sleep.

So I rolled away from her and tried to sleep for the last hour before the alarm went off.

And guess who had to be woken up at 6:40 this morning?

Uh huh. It was Olivia.

When I asked her if she was tired, she replied, “Uh huh.”

I wonder why.