As I sit here in my bed at 9:30pm eating my late-night snack and taking baby sips of the cocktail I have been nursing for over an hour, I look over at you. There you are, laying with your head on my pillow, covered in my blanket, on my side of the bed and I think to myself…

She’s won.

Again.

She’s the winner.

She beats me every single night.

Every night (it seems) we play a little game. The game is called ‘Mommy Tries to Relax on the Couch, But I Can Make Her Come to Bed’. It’s only a two-player game and you never want to play it with Daddy. Nope, your desired opponent (at least for another year, most likely) is…you guessed it…me.

I don’t mind playing games on a Friday night, honestly, I really enjoy them. But I’d much rather be playing ‘Let’s Watch a Movie and Try Not to Fall Asleep Halfway Through It’ or ‘Let’s Ignore Each Other and Pay Attention to Our Electronic Devices’ with Daddy.

But, nope. I rarely am given the opportunity to play those games these days.

Some nights I’m okay with playing with you; I’d say there’s even nights when I welcome the early bedtime. Yet, there are plenty of other days I simply feel over-needed and touched out, and just want some completely and admittedly selfish space.

Some days I wish I could enable a force field around myself whenever I wanted and during that time not one single kid’s hand could tap me 800 times, grab my hand and pull me, or yank on my skirt.

But alas, there’s no force field and I can’t escape my fate.

If I am not going to ever let you lose and make you cry it out, then I can’t complain when you win.

And in writing this, well, I just realized something. As it turns out, I think this is really a win-win for the both of us.

While it’s absolutely true that you are getting to play what you want every single night, I, too, am given the daily opportunity to give you what you need — pure and simple connection and attachment — and if that’s not the biggest parenting win for me, then I don’t know what else would be.

When we play this game, honey, you and I are both winners…I just fail to remember that sometimes.