The night that wouldn't end!

Last night, Thursday, was probably the worst night i've ever had as a mom, it was just strange!!

For starters Catcher didn't want to go to sleep, I had to let him cry it out for a little while, which did not make our dog, Kolohe very happy. Kolohe paced anxiously outside Catcher's door, every once in a while she'd stop and just stare at the door. I was down the hall trying not to listen to the crying. After about a half hour i guess the dog just couldn't take it anymore. She came down the hall and begged, whined and yelped until i finally got up and went in and picked up Catcher....ok Lassie, calm down sheesh! Once Catcher quieted down, Kolohe flopped down on her fluffy dog bed and heaved a big sigh, apparently she was much more relaxed now. I have never seen her act that way to any of our kids crying, it was very strange. After holding Catcher for about five minutes he finally drifted off and was able to go to sleep.

Now keep in mind that Katie went to bed on time (7 or 7:30ish) and the older two girls went to bed right after getting home from baseball practice, around 8:30 i think, after getting on p.j's and going potty. Their routine was off because they didn't all go to bed at the same time and have singing time, but i do not think it was the cause of the craziness that would ensue. They did have water bottles at the baseball game which were both empty when they returned, so i expected each of them to have a trip to the bathroom during the night, no big deal....or so i thought!

9:30pm Maggie got up to go potty, she went and hopped right back into bed, perfection.

10:45pm i hear a door open down the hall, i go to see who it is. Then the door immediately closes, no one emerged....that's weird.

10:46pm i hear a door open AGAIN, no one emerges, AGAIN, but this time i know who's door it was. It was Maggie and Katie's room. So i open the door to see who's up, it's Maggie, at her dresser....huh? I ask her what she's doing and she admits that she's wet her panties, which surprises me since she just went potty an hour ago....strange, but not uncommon for her. So i tell her to go wait in the bathroom while i check to see if the bed is wet (i dread changing a top bunk in the middle of the night!!!!) Nope, bed is dry....that's good, ladder up to the bed....that's wet...at least it's easier to clean. Then i go check on Maggie in the bathroom, she has her clothes that she peed in....in the toilet??? what??? I ask her what she's doing she says she put her dirty clothes in the hamper....uhm not quite. I figure she must not be very awake, she has walked in her sleep only one other time, but she looks fully awake this time, unlike the sleep walking event in which her eyes were fixed and she didn't respond to me, she was responsive and her eyes looked normal....weird. so i put the now wet pajama pants in the bathtub and told her to sit on the potty to make sure she gets all the rest of the pee out...just in case. So she does. That's when i realize that although she changed her pajama pants, she didn't put any other underwear on and the pj pants were backwords...i suppose that's what happens when you get dressed in the dark. So i get her all straightened out. I decide to finally go laydown in bed, where the husband man is already resting. Just as my head hits the pillow.....

11:08pm Elaine emerges from her room....naked!!! what the???? This is very unusual for her, since she is always picky about what she wears i found it very weird that she would get undressed in the middle of the night. and when i had gone in to put Catcher to sleep, Elaine was still fully dressed in pjs and asleep. I asked her what she needed she simply said she had to go potty....so why the strip show then??? she had no response. Again i wondered if she was doing things in her sleep but she too seemed more awake and normal than any sleep walking episode we've ever had with her. After she used the potty i went in the room with her and found her pjs sitting on the edge of her bed, i convinced her to get redressed and go back to bed.....very very weird. Now i can finally go back to bed.....ahhh, bed, my head has just hit the pillow when....


11:37pm Catcher starts to cry....a very loud bursting kind of cry. That's weird, he usually sleeps six hours after going to bed, then wakes up to eat and goes back to sleep another 4, why would he wake up so soon? He was still fast asleep when i was in there with Elaine only a few moments before....weird weird, even Kolohe jumped up when Catcher started crying. So i decided to go in there and let him nurse anyway, why not...maybe NOW he'll go back to sleep. Sure enough he just wanted to nurse, but he wasn't going right back to sleep, he wanted to sit and smile at me, which is cute, but not when all i wanted to do was finally get to bed! He was finally starting to fall asleep, when Elaine started making noises in her sleep, i could tell she was asleep because i could hear her grinding her teeth...youch! She started wimpering in her sleep, must be having a sad or bad dream, poor kid. Catcher FINALLY falls asleep and i lay him down and walk out. Finally....i'm tired and all kids are asleep....going to bed, my head just hits the pillow when....

12:46pm Elaine shows up at my room, she must be stealthy because the baby monitor is on and i didn't even hear her get up and walk out of the room (she shares a room with Catcher), again, weird. She's at my door and says "I can't sleep." What do you mean you can't sleep, not two minutes ago you were grinding your teeth in REM and now you....can't sleep? Must have been that dream that was making her cry. So i ask her about the dream. She tells me some gibberish about a bathroom and a bad guy in the hallway....which i'll admit kinda freaked me out, but i reassured her it wasn't real and couldn't get her so i go back with her into her room, get her settled into bed and she is asleep before i walk out the door....can't sleep my foot LOL...whatever. NOW i can sleep right?......so my head hits the pillow when.....

Sometime after 1:30am (starting to lose track at this point) Adam starts to talk in his sleep. At first i think he's talk to me, and i try to ask him what? what? because it doesn't make sense, then in between thoughts he grinds his teeth, sure sign he's STILL asleep....ok, just ignore him and GO to sleep! So my head hits the pillow and finally for real i get to fall asleep.....until....

2:30am Maggie starts to scream....SCREAM! it's coming from her room so i race in to see what's happened, in my mind i'm thinking oh no she tried to climb down the ladder and fell, or she's so tired she can't figure out how to climb down and this time she really has wet the bed....I fling open the door and.......silence. the moment i open the door she stops, again, must have been in her sleep.....our kids have been known to cry in their sleep sometimes, but sheesh all this in one night is really starting to wear on me! She doesn't even look like she even sat up to scream which my sleep screamers usually do, nope, still laying curled up with "Dog" her beloved stuffed toy from a thrift store....I peek in on Katie on the bottom bunk, sprawled out with "dolly" (my kids have such original names huh...lol) laying on top of her....she didn't even wake up from the scream....good.....now i can go back to sleep.....i think i was asleep before my head hit the pillow this time......until.....(yes there's more....it was an insane night!!!)

4:00am...ish....Catcher wakes up AGAIN....are you kidding me????? The thing about hearing the baby cry on the monitor my body gets up and out of bed before my mind even registers what i'm doing, so i stumble down the hall, trip over the dog who sleeps on a bed outside our door, pick myself up and stagger into Catcher's room, where thankfully, as usual, Elaine is sleeping right thru his incesant crying.....I pick him up and nurse him in the comfort of the rocking chair in the room. Their room maybe the tiniest room on the planet for two siblings to share, but at least the rocking chair fits in it, even if a dresser doesn't. That chair is heaven for me, because while he gets his nursing comfort i drift in and out of sleep....waking every few minutes I remember, hey i can't sleep i'm in a chair feeding the baby! Eventually he too falls asleep, but again it takes much longer than normal (normal being less than half an hour to eat and go back to sleep)....so finally i stumble back into bed it's 5:26am....yuck. My head misses the pillow and hits the mattress, who cares..........

5:30am....Adam's alarm clock goes off.......you've got to be kidding me........


here it is 12:30 in the afternoon after the night of hell and i'm trying to stay awake by writing about all of the insanity in my blog. You must understand normally my kids (aside from Catcher since he's still a baby) are the best sleepers on the planet!!! They go to bed between 7 and 7:30pm and i don't hear a peep out of any of them until 7 or 7:30am the following morning....it's fabulous.....last night was just WEIRD i can't say it enough times, the only one who did not act weird, was sweet sleepy Katie, thank goodness, at least someone in the house had a normal night....i hope to never have a repeat of this again or i might boycott parenting for that night and delegate it to daddy....mommy needs to z z z zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz