Entitled or Empowered

"I hungry, Mommy.  I hungry.  Mommy, I hungry.  I hungry, Mommy."

Ceaselessly.  Plaintively.  With pathos to tug at my heart strings, a whine to get on my nerves.

And still I kept my eyes tightly shut, hoping that in this little battle of the wills at midnight, mine would prevail.

(and before you wonder whether I am cruel and unusual, dinner had been served, and a before-bed snack given that was so generous, a bowl of dry cereal was leftover on the table for morning)

I don't remember signing up to staff a 24/7 diner for my three-year-old.
 I just wanted to sleep already.

Landon and I were sharing my mom's basement guest room; there was no escaping his mission.  I finally realized that I could not outlast him.

"You can go upstairs and get that bowl of cereal if you are so hungry, then."

"But it is too dark.  I can't reach the light.  I a little scared, Mommy."

These seemed like valid points.  Kind of.  I felt a twinge of guilt that I may be sending my toddler upstairs on an errand of terror just to settle a grumbly tummy.

I dragged myself out of bed, prepared to turn on the light to the stairwell.  It was on.  Illuminating the trail to the answer to all hunger in this house.  A bowl of cereal.  Take it or leave it.

"The light is on, Landon.  If you are so hungry, go upstairs and get it yourself."

And with a little more fussing and fretting, he decided he was not that hungry.

I thought I had won.

Until 3 AM rolled around and I was barely asleep (tough night), to be woken up by an outraged, "Hey!  Who turned off the bedroom light?!  I want that on.  I can't sleep with the light off!"

Will I ever get any sleep?

"If you want it on so badly, turn it on yourself," I say, thinking I'd found the magic formula.

And so he did. Flooding the room with blazing light.  At 3 am.

Alrighty then.

We have officially learned to call each other's bluff.