Back with Spirit and Thing You Shouldn't Do #8

Hello, hello, hello! Have a good holiday? Ready for the new year? Yes? No? Don't care? Lovely!

I was going to use this space to write my thoughts and feelings on The Spirit, but Jon beat me to the punch by like - almost two weeks. He also hit all the points I wanted to make, so there's little point in doing it again. What he said about the movie goes for me, too. Also, he did this, which blows any commentary I have about the movie, at least about Scarlett Johansson in the movie, out of the water. So, well done there, Jon.

On to -
Thing You Shouldn't Do #8:
Take a sleeping aid on the same night as your spouse.

Why? Because ten minutes after you do, your kid is going to get out of bed and vomit all over the place. Oh, and another one of your kids will have nightmares and crawl into bed, proceeding to kick and flail around all night.

Seriously.

Last night, in an effort to fix our whacked schedules so we could function in a work week, I took a Unisom and Stacy took half of one (previously prescribed to her while pregnant with Vicki as part of an anti-nausea regimen.) Naturally, a few minutes later, Zoe stumbled into the room complaining of pains in her abdomen. Stacy, the wise woman that she is, did the nausea check and rushed her to the bathroom before chunks blew. She was up for another hour with stomach pains, but they seemed to ease off and she fell to sleep. An indeterminate amount of time passed before I was rudely jerked awake by a pair of little bony knees curled up into my back. Scarlett had nightmares and crawled into bed. She was snuggled up with Stacy, which meant I was the target of any flailing limbs. Being too tired to fumble with my sleep machine and lug her back to her bed, also knowing that it was only a temporary measure, I dropped back into slumber. It was pretty fitful, as I would be awakened by sporadic thrashing from Scarlett throughout the night.

All in all, not a good way to start a work week after nearly two weeks of vacation.

Zoe seems a bit better, but we're going to have her checked out if the pain comes back. I'm always paranoid of untreated appendicitis or worse when it comes to those nebulous pains in the abdomen of my kids.

Anyone else have a return from vacation story they'd like to share?

Back to the Drawing Boooaaa...zzzzzzzzzzzz

We thought we had finally done it. For three nights in a row last week, Stacy and I slept through the night for the first time since Zoe was born. Zoe is turning four this week. It was amazing.

Zoe didn't begin sleeping through the night until Scarlett was born. Scarlett had not slept through the night without either getting us out of bed to put her back to sleep or getting in our bed and poking at us while we tried to sleep.

One late night while sitting in the girls' room trying to coax her back to sleep, I noticed how noisy it was. Most of the noise came from the top bunk where Vicki sleeps. The rustling of covers and the mattress pad combined with her teeth grinding would be enough to keep anyone awake.

The next night we moved Scarlett's toddler bed into the toy room next door. That night, she slept all the way through. She'd done that before, but usually only when medicated or overly tired. We weren't ready to get down on our knees and praise the gods of slumber yet. Then she did it again. Then again. The following morning was Saturday and all three of our girls were in bed until after Stacy and I got up. I honestly can't remember that ever happening before.

But what the gods of slumber grant, the gods of slumber taketh away. Three nights ago Scarlett got up again. She seemed to be having nightmares. The next morning, Stacy got out of her that something on the wall was scaring her. She sleeps under my Pez collection. I suppose it can be scary to think of all those plastic smiling faces looming over you when you're two. That night as she was laying down, Stacy and I took all the Pez down while she pointed up at a spot near her bed saying something to the affect of "[S]He scared me." (She talks great, we just don't always understand her.) We assured her that the Pez wouldn't scare her again and headed off to bed.

No luck. She was up three or four times before we relented and let her sleep with us. Last night was the same. She pointed at the same spot of empty shelves and told us the same thing. She let us turn out the light and leave the room, but I could tell she was ill at ease. Sure enough, last night was as bad as the other two.

We're back to where we started, only more disappointed after that oh-so-brief window of real sleep last week. My next thought is to take down the shelves, but I don't know if the source of Scarlett's fears is something we can actually see on the wall.

Anyone else have a similar experience that would like to share some possible solutions?

Table for Self Pity? Party of One?

Wow.

Last night sucked.

My two youngest have contracted the usual creeping crud that is so common this time of year. Poor Zoe has coughed so much she's hoarse (then again, she's young, so wouldn't that be poany?)

See that? That miserable attempt at humor? That is the result of three hours of interrupted sleep. You see, the family that shares together suffers together. Being the loving father that I am, I couldn't in good conscience let my children go through an illness without going through it myself. Last night I lay awake in bed, exhausted, but unable to sleep from the sinus pressure directly on my brain and the constant flow of post-nasal muck. You know how it is, no matter what you do, you can't get comfortable enough to sleep.

Sometime in the next two hours, I did manage to drift off. Naturally, that's when my beloved two-year-old decided she had enough sleep and it was time to torture mommy and daddy. Awoken from a very shallow sleep, it was another hour or so before I could manage to nod off again. Stacy got it even worse. Scarlett finally fell back asleep right on Stacy's shoulder. After suffering as long as she could, Stacy moved Scarlett off, which woke the little angel up, of course. It's all elbows in the face and pokes in the eyes after that, it doesn't matter how many cartoons you stick her in front of.

So, come the alarm in the morning, I hobbled out of bed like an old man, a cranky old man. I owe Stacy my apologies, I wasn't exactly a sympathetic ear to her perfectly valid complaints this morning. She's still got to take care of four sick kids and keep a household running. I just have to stay awake during a full day of meetings and find a sitting position that doesn't send excruciating pain shooting up and down my back.

Pain pills and caffeine are my friends today. Okay, I'm done whining. Anyone want a precocious two-year-old? No reasonable offer refused!

My Brain Hates Me

While going to bed with the wife away sucks, it does usually mean that I get more sleep. Whether it's the getting the baby for midnight nursings, comforting one of the older girls after a nightmare, or being awoken by a flailing arm, my nights (and Stacy's) are regularly interrupted. Add to that the fact that I can never seem to get to bed before 11:00 PM on work nights and you get an idea of how tired I am when I come in to work. Since none of those distractions exist when the family is away, I usually get a full night's rest any given night.

Just to make sure, I took some Excedrin PM last night. I got to sleep around 9:30, which wouldn't give me a full 8 hours, but it'd be more than usual.

That's why I was surprised when I woke up at 11:30. Muddled with sleep, I stared at the clock for a few moments trying to puzzle out how I could sleep all the way to 11:30 without waking up and why it was still dark outside. Ohhhh, 11:30 PM, well that's okay, I still had 5 hours to sleep.

Then I woke up at 1:30. WTF? Whatever, I still had more sleep time.

Then again at 3:00. Ok, now I'm kinda pissed off at myself.

By the time my alarm started going off at 4:25, I was only lightly sleeping. Angry at the entire situation, I hit my snooze out of defiance. I was going to get some more damn sleep even if it was only 9 minute increments!

I finally gave up a little before 5:00 and got out of bed. There's something about not even reaching REM sleep that really bugs me. It may be a wholly psychological thing or an actual physiological effect, but I always feel off when I don't get at least 4 hours of continuous sleep. I have come to the conclusion that my brain is angry at me for some reason. Maybe it was all the paint fumes I inhaled after finally painting that empty spot on the basement wall?