When I was maybe six or seven we went and stayed at a hotel in Sturbridge Village. It ended up being an absolutely horrific trip for a multitude of reasons. But my most vivid memory from that trip was Saturday night. Looking back I realize it had been a disaster of a day.

But at the time I was in my happy little kid land that everything was fine because my parents did a pretty good job at covering up how bad my Mom’s tooth situation was and how stressed my Dad was because she had spent the day in the emergency department dealing with severe tooth pain and he had spent the day with us. Also, the hotel was hosting a dog show. They had neglected to tell us this ahead of time. So it smelled like dog. Everywhere. So we are all in the room, it’s probably around 9:00 pm and we are about to go to sleep and I can’t find my bunny. His name was Bunkles. 

I looked and looked, and could not find him. I told my parents. Neither of whom wanted to deal with this problem. They also didn’t believe he actually wasn’t in the room. But I cried. So they looked. Couldn’t find him. My dad wanted to wait until morning and go and ask the hotel staff. I cried more. My mom mumbled something through a swollen mouth and my Dad eventually stormed out of the room. 

To this day I don’t know what happened. But he came back into the room about an hour later and chucked Bunkles at my head. Apparently the bunny got tangled in the sheets and was taken by housekeeping with the sheets. The hotel staff had tracked it down; I’m sure with my Dad being super irritable with them in the process. 

I remember being highly insulted at my Dad for throwing Bunkles at my head. I wisely kept quiet though and just turned my light off and went to sleep. It’s a night that’s always stuck with me. Because I remember feeling it was unfair that my Dad was angry at me for something out of my control. I didn’t know they actually took the sheets off the bed at the hotel every day. I mean I actually didn’t know that. We didn’t go to hotels much, and we certainly didn’t have our sheets changed at home daily. My Dad was pissed because he was tired and wanted to go to bed not track down a damn stuffed animal in hotel laundry. 

Now that I’m a parent with two three year olds though, I get it. Because I’ve wanted to chuck stuff at their heads a lot. 

And looking back through adult eyes- the dogs, the tooth, being out of state, dealing with two kids all day, just wanting to go to bed, and having to go track down a white bunny that got lost in a sea of white sheets. Yeah I’d be pissed too. 

Kids have this innate ability to drive us to the edge. Since the time change my sons have been absolutely horrific at night for bedtime. To the degree that we actually had to stop reading books at night because reading nighttime books was adding to the nightly horror. So now I feel like a horrible mom because we don’t read to them at night anymore. 

I also feel horrible because I feel like we should be able to contain them at night. We should be able to wind them down and calmly get them into bed with hugs and kisses and smiles and I love you’s. Instead it’s more like crying, screaming, craziness. Sometimes I’ve been to the point of tears, and they are always to the point of tears. In the midst of this we are trying to potty train them. So occasionally while they are screaming and we are holding them down into their beds they suddenly have to pee pee on the potty and we all get a timeout. But it just delays the inevitable. 

I’m pretty sure I have actually thrown stuff at nighttime in the last few weeks. Because it’s been so freaking miserable. But usually I leave the room, walk to my room, and throw something and yell and punch a pillow. Then my wife goes in. 

Something I always thought was rude was people telling me “Three will be worse than two.” Because two wasn’t so bad for us. It was hard, like every age with twins is, but not horrible. But if the first few weeks of three and bedtime are any indication, I mean those people were not wrong. But did they really need to say that? I will never say it to another parent.

Because to just make that blanket statement is horrible. We are in survival mode and to think it could get worse? That blows.

To the all the three year old mom’s out there. You got this. And if you have to throw something, throw a stuffed animal. They are soft and they bounce. And throw it out the door, not at the kid. Because they will remember if you throw it at their head. And likely write a blog about it in about twenty-five years. 

It’s taken me awhile to write this because it’s not fun. It’s not fun talking about the painful routine that has become life for us in the past few weeks. My wife and I are exhausted and we literally dread nighttime. It’s been bad. A bad few weeks. But for tonight, they went down with minimal fuss, probably because they didn’t nap, so yeah that was awesome. And I’m signing off and going to bed because like I said, we are beat.