"You'll Just Have to Watch Him Then..."

That’s what I finally whispered to God when our son was two years old.

We were exhausted from dealing with a child who could not sleep through the night and regularly woke us up sobbing and gripping the baby gate we placed at his bedroom door. Our bedroom was upstairs and the kids’ rooms were on the main floor. (Not our choice, just our house at the time.)

In the wee hours of the night, my hubby would trudge down the stairs and carry our son back up to our bed. It took another bit of time to quiet him. The whole process left us majorly sleep deprived and after several years I just gave up one night.

A full night’s sleep was desperately needed by parents, and the only way we knew we could get it was to stop going downstairs in the middle of the night and rescuing our crying son. The one sobbing and gripping the gate blocking his exit.

So one night I broke. I couldn’t take the sleep interruption anymore and my husband was even more deranged. I set a timer to make sure a lamp lit the stairs to our bedroom, we took down the gate and I prayed for our son’s safety as he would surely seek us out in the middle of the night.

“You’ll just have to watch him God, cuz I’m just too tired anymore.”

That’s when I realized He had already been watching, and it was me that needed to rid myself of “ought’s” and anxieties. I needed to let go of the idea that I needed to supervise every single detail of this wild and woolly child’s life.

The sweetest thing happened as a result of letting go.

Upon being tucked into his bed, our son would ask if he could come in to our bed at “39” – his term for the middle of the night. We always said yes, we’d be glad to see him at 39. Neither one of us noticed “39”, and began sleeping through the whole night and woke up with our little guy quietly cuddling next to us. Well rested, we noted that he’d managed to climb the stairs safely every night thanks to God’s protection.

Our baby boy is now a lanky 16-year-old who chuckles upon hearing tales of our past bedtime woe. I’m so glad we let go and cuddled him for as long as it lasted…

Those “little guy” years pass far too quickly.