Right now I am eavesdropping on a conversation between AJ and Stella. I am letting them work out their own issues, but monitoring closely, just to be sure it doesn't break out into a fist fight(It's been known to happen).

AJ says, "You're not being a very good friend right now."
And Stella screams at the top of her lungs, "AJ don't touch my book!" (Proving her obvious point).

AJ is right, Stella is not being a good friend right now. Stella is whining and yelling and bullying. It's not very becoming of a lady. But what happens if I intervene every time Stella is doing something naughty? Seriously, I'd like to know. Can anyone tell me?

I want Stella to see for herself that AJ will not play with her if she's not a good friend. I want her to learn how to adjust her attitude and play well with others. I want her to stop complaining and learn to use a sweet, peaceful voice to ask for what she wants. And if I am always there to step in and correct the situation, force her to apologize and threaten punishment, can she ever learn those things on her own? Or if so, will they stem from a learned behavior out of the fear of mom rather then a deep seeded moral compass?

Man, it is tough being a parent.

Like really tough.

The fight continues only the protagonist has shifted. I just heard Stella offer a toy to AJ and apologize all on her own. My heart swells with pride and then AJ says, "Noooooooooo. I don't want that one, I want the other one!" Oh, boy.

Like I was saying, it's tough being a parent. I mean those children depend on you for everything. And they don't care if you're tired, or not necessarily a morning person, or have numerous faults that always get in the way of being the best parent possible. They don't care, and I'm starting to think they don't care on purpose.

Last night, trying to get the girls to bed was a nightmare. I cannot stress this enough.... a nightmare. Bedtime for Stella is 8:00 PM. Every night, at exactly eight she goes to bed. I am a schedule person when it comes to sleep and so I am very strict about this bedtime. I am like this so that bedtime is easy, seemless, without hassle and so that my children have structure.

Because the girl's share a room and tend to be very naughty at night (Imagine that, naughty when they're tired!) I can only put one child down at a time. So, Stella goes to bed at 8 and then we pray and hope and say incantations and pray some more that she will be asleep by 9 which is when Scarlett goes down.

But last night Stella didn't go down. She didn't even pretend to go down. Not even a little bit. Not even after two spankings! I mean it was 10:30 before that child was asleep. And Scarlett was just as bad. Or when she wasn't bad, she was crying at the top of her lungs because Stella wouldn't let her go to bed. Do you know what happens in the time span of 2 and a half hours of little girl's not going to sleep?

I'll tell you: Insanity.

I was about to go crazy. Between the screaming, and disobeying, and the spanking(Which totally breaks my heart and I can totally see where the whole "This hurts me more than it hurts you" thing came from. Because it's TRUE!) I was about to lose it. I'm torn between being mad, I mean Stella knows better, she knows to stay in bed, she knows to go to sleep for that matter, and she knows better then to climb into her sister's crib and sit on top of her head. And torn between crying(I mean myself crying, me the mother, the one who is supposed to be in charge.) I hate disciplining my girls. Hate it. They are so good most of the time. Stella is 2 for goodness sakes and Scarlett doesn't know better. Well, ok, Scarlett does know better some of the time. But that whole cold hearted parent thing to get your child to behave just isn't working for me.

To top it off. Zach asked his sister to come babysit so we could go grab a bite to eat. I know on a Thursday. I have to be honest here and say that going out on a weekday night is not that out of the ordinary for us. If we can get a sitter we will go anywhere. It's always after the girls are asleep though, we are the ones who put them to bed every night. But then.... we don't always stick around.

Well, we had wanted to leave the house by 9.... But that wasn't happening.

I've lost my train of thought. I had to deal with a banana situation....

The point is my little girls, who love their sleep and need their sleep didn't fall asleep until 10:30. Scarlett was up at 3 screaming. I'm not sure why, I just know we were awake for an hour. Stella was up at 6:30 where she proceeded to share her dolls with Scarlett who was still sleeping. (The poor child! Nobody wants a wake up call given by a hard plastic-headed doll thrown on your face while you're sleeping. It's border line cruel. Or just average sister stuff.) ((Double Parenthesis. I wouldn't know anything about Average Sister Stuff because I didn't have any sisters growing up. Only brothers. Three of them in fact. And they do much worse stuff then aggressively share their dolls with you! Much worse.))

So of course Scarlett is now awake and screaming. Zach goes to get her and bring her to me. Oddly enough Stella was pretending to be back asleep by the time he got to Scarlett. And although she is still sleeping after I laid her back down. I am not. Stella is not. And AJ is definitely wide awake since I have to keep asking her not to scream at the top of her lungs.

The point of all of this is? I worry about being a good enough parent every day, all day. I mean, of course I do. And I always, always feel like I'm falling short or not doing enough.

But what it comes down to......: I know, without a doubt in my head, that I would be a much, much, much better parent if I got more sleep.

That's a fact.

But then, really, if I got an adequate amount of sleep, would I really feel like a parent?