Surviving

2026-10-16

Typing this in my phone, I assume there will be a ton of typos and perhaps be ill formatted. Sorry in advance.

I think I have hit the hardest age of parenting, so far. I have hear teenage years are particularly tough so I put the ‘so far’ caveat to this statement.

My youngest has hit what I assume are the terrible twos and they are indeed terrible. Before I complain too much I want to acknowledge that I am lucky and privileged, our kids are healthy, growing, etc. but given that it has been a really tough few months, a few weeks or perhaps months ago he started getting up at night and randomly. Some nights he sleeps through the night and some nights he gets up at 2pm and wants some comfort. Some times he gets up at 11pm and the. Again at 5am.

And this is tough on my spirit. I am haggard and am starting a new job, every day is a slog and I don’t perform my best at work or even at parenting. And the hardest part is that I don’t know when it will end, I assume it will, but it could be tomorrow or 6 months from now.

On top of that our youngest has entered some irrational argument phase, or is just bad at communicating. It will be two in the morning and I am comforting him and he will say: ‘go away daddy’, and I will leave, and then he will say ‘come back daddy’. And it will go on like this for minutes, tens of minutes. And if I don’t do as he says he cries, pretty hard. And I get frustrated as his commands that aren’t making home happy. It is wild. After twenty minutes I am enraged and it is still two in the morning and we are no closer to sleep.

During these times I try to remind myself he is a two year old and doesn’t know what he is saying. I found that distraction works slightly, and only slightly, better than trying to appease him.

And that is all, this blog is mostly for me so I can remember what having a stubborn two year old is like. A few years from now I hope I can look back at this and laugh. But for now it is day to day trying to get sleep and not to be too angry.

-Gary