What's a Mom to do?

It started off well...our 2 year old and 1 year old sharing a room. Sure, one would wake up and fuss, but the other one would stay asleep. My dilemma now is that our 2 year old has hit the trying, terrific, tough, typical, talkative, terrifying phase. Not only does he color on the walls and on himself, he stands in protest to him or his brother getting sleep.



This is just an example of what he looked like after coloring himself. You should see the walls.

Here's the scenario. They sleep in separate cribs with a nightlight and a loud fan. Our 2 yr. old will climb out of his crib, turn on the light, turn off and/or unplug the fan, unplug the nightlight (which he's busted every light and, after busting 3 of them, they now sleep without a nightlight) and climbs into the 1 yr. old's crib and wakes him up to play.

I discipline and I fuss, over and over and over and over. I'd say for any given sleep time, I'm up there at least 5 times. Do that for nap and nighttime? It's exhausting. Have I mentioned that we have about 18 steps to go upstairs?

The other part that's hard is that our 2 yr. old keeps doing it. Same with coloring the walls. After a lot of discipline, he still does it. He's a smart 2 yr. old and he learns quickly. He's probably our fastest learner at this age and he grasps concepts easily. So I know that he is capable of doing this...and he doesn't.

I am writing about his now, at 7:50 a.m. because it happened again...at 4 A.M.!!!!! FOUR! A! M! I am really trying to enjoy this baby phase while it lasts, but it's so hard not to wish that they were potty trained and sleeping in big-boy beds. And all of this above is why I didn't want to put the 2 yr. old in a big-boy bed yet. Maybe I should try that....idunno.

Sigh.

Sigh again.

Sigh with exaggerated shoulder shrug-&-drop.