My daughter kicked me out of her room today.
Dead serious, she kicked me out of her room.
How does a toddler, a two-year old being barely cognizant of the world, kick a fully grown person who is, in fact, her father out of her room? And how does she do it while remaining in her crib?
Well I’ll tell you.
As I may have mentioned earlier, my daughter is ill. We made the choice to burn one more PTO day and have her stay home, seeing as she’s still contagious for a little while longer. She managed to sleep through the night just fine, but she was still exhausted. Sleep deficits are hard on a little toddler.
In any case, we ran a few errands today, came home by 11:30ish, and had a bit of lunch.
Afterwards, I decided it was time for her to take a coffee break (to use our daycare provider’s turn of phrase). She disagreed, but not too strenously. So I left her in her crib. Through the monitor I listened as her protests eventually died away, and she began playing. She always does that at home. Sometimes she’ll play quietly with baby or lovie for an hour before finally taking a nap.
After about a half hour, she starts calling out to me again. ”Daddy! Diaper Change!”
My daughter has a history of unloading a few minutes after we put her in a crib for a nap and walk away. And it’s uncomfortable enough for her that she then doesn’t go to sleep. So these days we attempt to change her diaper when she says she needs it. Or when we can tell she needs it, even if she’s denying it.
I go up to change her diaper, which pleases her to no end. She believes that she’s found her way out.
Her face grew horrified as I went to put her back in her crib to continue her nap attempt rather than taking her downstairs as she had planned. She went into full freak-out mode. I attempted to get her to calm down, but eventually I decided to cut my losses and just head down stairs.
As my feet passed the threshold of her doorway, she decided to kick it up a notch or twelve. By the time I got downstairs she was tossing things. She has a bad habit of throwing things away, even things that she dearly loves and cannot be without. Namely baby. After a few seconds her crying exceded my beliefs and went even more frantic as she realized what she had done. Baby was now outside the crib.
I waited a few moments, listening to the freakout gradually die down to whimpers. And then I went upstairs.
I found my daughter standing in her crib, her head resting on the railing, sobbing quietly to herself. Without saying a word, I picked up baby from the floor and handed it back to her. I also gently laid her down on her mattress.
She looked up at me, full-on pout on her lips, sputtering and sobbing still. And then she said, “Daddy…go away.” It was actually more drawn out than that, but the intent was clear. She was kicking me out.
I decided not to argue the point. I told her that I loved her and left the room.
The kicker is that once she woke up from her three hour nap that followed she was still mad at me. For 20 minutes she wouldn’t let me touch her or even acknowledge that she wanted to leave the crib.
So now I know what I have to look forward to.
