Where's Momma?

Ryan and I have found that the one thing that helps us be the best parents that we can be is routine. It’s not for everyone. Before Ryan and I had Tino we said that we would bring Tino into our routine and not wrap our lives around him. Well children change everything when they come along. You can’t deny that. In some ways we’ve adjusted our lives to Tino and in others he just has to deal with the way we run things. Either way, sticking to a routine really helps us and I think Tino’s happier as well.

In my opinion, Tino’s bedtime routine is great. Around 7 pm – 7:30 pm I ask Tino if he’s tired and ready for bed. If he is he drops his toys and runs over to the baby gate blocking his way up to his room. I walk over, take down the gate and he runs to the steps, crawls up and runs down the hall to his room. Recently, he’s started opening his drawer that holds his pajamas and then running over to his CD player and turning his bedtime music on. I’m usually one step behind him, getting ready for bath time if it’s a bath night.

Tino’s almost 18 months old so the risk of SIDS is no existent so now he has some stuffed animals in his crib and a blanket and a monkey pillow pet. He likes all these items arranged a certain way in his crib. So I get them all settled blah, blah, blah.

Last night, we went about routine as usual.

Me: “Tino, buddy you tired?” He runs to the baby gate. I remove the baby gate. He climbs the stairs and runs down the hall to his room, which was dark. However, this time, I stopped at the top of the stairs to get a pair of his pajamas out of a laundry basket of his clean clothes that hadn’t gotten folded yet. Normally, I’d be right behind him. Only this time I stopped for a minute at the top of the stairs and he ran on ahead of me.

I hear him start screaming and crying and calling out, “Mummy, Mummy!!” I’d never really heard this cry from him so I thought maybe he’d tripped and hurt himself. So I rushed to his room and he’s standing there crying big ol fat tears, arms out for me to pick him up. He was afraid. He’d walked into the dark room, turned around and I wasn’t there. He got scared. I scooped him up and soothed him. He settled down. 

It was a tender moment. He’s so independent pushing my hands away whenever I try to help him with anything. But, last night he still needed his momma. I just love my little guy.