Persistence Is A Virtue…Or Is It Patience?

Caedmon has one thing going for him right now: persistence.

For a long time, he’s taken a cup of water to bed. Usually he takes a few sips, goes to sleep. So you’d think it would be something he can live without.

Apparently not.

I understand having water by the bed. I almost always have a water glass on my bedside table at night. But after taking him to the bathroom in the middle of the night Sunday and Monday and twice Tuesday night (which admittedly, probably had more to do with the Dr. Pepper he had after dinner than his water cup), I decided it was time to do away with the cup in the bed. I’d been toying with it for a while and had sort of been trying to wean him off of having it by just giving him a little sip of water in it.

But last night? He was not about to let it go.

I put Caedmon to bed late, having let him stay up because two of his favorite people were here, Jill and Brandon. He had a blast with them, and I put him to bed about 8:30. No cup in the bed.

He. Was. Devastated.

For the next forty-five minutes, Caedmon proceeded to yell, beg, and whine for a drink of water. Now before you go and call me a child abuser for depriving my child of liquid, please note that he’d just chugged some water in the kitchen right before I put his pajamas on him. Clearly, he was not dehydrated and would not shrivel up before morning. But try telling him that.

I knew it was hard for him, so I didn’t really want to spank him. I went into his room and explained that he could have as much water as he wanted in the morning, when it was time to get up. I went back into the living room, where I promptly heard over the monitor, “Is it time to get up yet and have a drink of water?”

I made several trips to his room during those forty-five minutes. Each time, he was crushed to find that I hadn’t brought water with me. I was beginning to feel bad about the whole thing, but there was no way on earth I was about to cave after all I’d been through. I felt better the next to last time I went in to lay him down because he seemed more concerned that I had taken my shoes off than he did about the whole water thing.

Caedmon finally settled down and went to sleep. I’m sure he’ll be parched when he wakes up. But he’ll live. And we’ll revisit the whole water thing once he’s in a toddler bed and can go pee in the middle of the night without help. He is a persistent little guy, though. And I’m already wondering what tonight holds.