When your existence is consumed by ankle biters, sleep becomes a novelty. Not only that, if mom is overly tired, energy demons will invade all the kids and said mom can kiss that shut-eye good-bye. Let's just examine last night, shall we?
Aria fell asleep watching a movie at 6 PM. This is the worst time for a child to fall asleep. It forces the mother to make a decision. Wake up the child, causing a melt-down followed by a cranky 3 yr old for the next 3-4 hours when she'll finally crash again. Or, let her sleep, move her to her bed and pray she was so tired that she'll stay asleep all night. I chose the latter. It was the wrong choice.
Her nap was over at 9:30 PM and she came bopping out of her room, all refreshed and ready to play!
In the mean time, Nathan (age 4) fell asleep on the couch. Now he's tricky too. When he falls asleep somewhere besides his bed, you must give him at least 30 minutes of un-interrupted sleep before trying to move him. Not doing so will result in a screaming, kicking tantrum that begins while you're trying to move him. If you've ever tried to carry a 45 lb cat who wants nothing more than to get away from you, then you may understand the danger I was facing at moving him to soon. Fortunately, I remembered the last time this happened and I let him sleep for 30 minutes before moving him.
So it's now 10 PM, Nathan is asleep, Aria is wide awake and Gabe(3 months) is screaming to be fed. So, I nurse him, fully expecting him to fall asleep, which he does. I held him for a few extra minutes to savor his baby-ness and laid him down. I pulled his blankets around him, all the while holding my breath and moving as quietly as possible. I back away, and his eyes pop open. His little baby grin absolves him of any wrong doing and I pick him back up.
Fast forward to 1 AM. Aria finally crashed again and I'm laying down and nursing Gabe in my bed hoping he'll fall asleep and stay that way. Apparently he did because when I woke up again at 3 AM to a noise from Aria, he was asleep. It didn't last long though. Aria had decided to come join Dave and I (and Gabe) in our bed. In the process of climbing in, she stepped on Gabe. The screaming didn't last too long and we all fell back to sleep.
I woke up at 5 AM to flip over and nurse Gabe again. Then at 7 AM, I woke up yet again. Only this time I was laying in a puddle. Now I wasn't totally shocked. After all, I am the resident cow, and leaking is not uncommon. But there was something different about this puddle. For one thing, my back was soaked. So, I checked the next likely source of the puddle. Aria. She hasn't wet her bed in months. Murphy's Law states, however, that when she does decide to wet her bed, it should not be her bed, it should be mine.
Did I mention my dryer is broken?
5 comments:
Oh, I feel for you! And do you know what's sad, I've been there. Well, all except for the dryer. That makes yours so much worse.
I'm tired for you.
i think you should go pee in her bed to teach her a lesson
and remember the time when aria was in the kitchen yelling "i needa pee - i needa pee!" and you asked me to go help her since she was doing so well in her potty training?
i go to the kitchen to help her and there she is reaching for the magnetic letter P on the fridge.
i needa get that dryer fixed because wet clothes hanging all over the house is becoming a hindrance to normal living
I feel for you too! I am really wondering how people do more than one. I want more than one, but I really wonder how people do it. Here's hoping for better sleep tonight!
Oh man! I think your night was longer than mine!
~Sunny
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