The Rest...Is History

I thought that when my kids got older and out of infancy, that night would be a time of rest. I thought that I would get a solid eight hours of sleep, with only an occasional interruption. This is just another one of the thousands of things that I have been sorely mistaken about. Last night was so bad, in fact, that I was longing for the days of night time nursing and diaper changes again.

I had just fallen asleep when Marlie came into the room. Her stomach hurt and she needed to throw up. As you all know, kids cannot just sit by the toilet and wait for it to happen. They need their mommy to sit by them and hold their hair or rub their back, while they wait for the big moment to arrive. An hour later...nothing. I made her a pallet on the floor, next to a trash can. Then I drifted back to sleep.

Not much later, Miss Ella came in and crawled between Daniel and I. She then proceeded to flail around and kick her legs, while sleep mumbling about something. After twenty minutes of having my back bruised, I woke her up to find out what was wrong. Her legs were itchy. I got up and found the lotion. I put some on her legs and flopped back into bed. The kicking did not stop, however. Her legs were cured but now her pinky toe hurt. I got up, got a cold, wet wash cloth and wrapped her foot up. I don't know why, but it worked.

I slunk back into the sheets and drifted off, once more. "Shit! She peed the damn bed!! Oh that's just #@&*#$ great!" This was what woke me the third time. It was my half awake, angry husband. Apparently he did not get the midnight memo about Ella's toe injury and the wet wash cloth wrap. He was in a rampage that he could not sleep well because of Ella's kicking and now the wet spot that he assumed was pee. I informed him of Ella's toe and asked him to calm down.

Finally, at three thirty, Marlie stopped getting up, Ella stopped kicking and my husband stopped cursing. My eyes felt like they had weights strapped to the lids as I passed out. This morning, my husband asked me what Marlie was doing on our floor. I just looked at him the way I used to when we had a newborn who would not sleep, as if to say,"You have no idea what went on here last night." At least when they are newborns, you can whip out a boob and magically put them back to sleep!