The Night Life

I went to bed before 10:30 last night, which is pretty early for me. I was really looking forward to a full night of sleep. Ha, silly me.

At 11:40pm Toby woke up screaming. Matt wasn't asleep yet, so he tended to him and realized he needed a diaper change. Somehow Toby must have peed a little while his diaper was off (he hasn' t done this for months) and Matt had to wake me to help him change Toby's jammies. I ran upstairs to refill Toby's soy milk, used the bathroom while I was up, then soothed Toby back to sleep. Ahhhhhh.

Almost immediately Naomi started coughing. She hasn't had trouble with coughing at night since last winter, but last night it was back. One coughing fit after another ensued, with maybe a minute's break in between. I laid in bed, groggy, sure she would stop soon. Finally, around 12:30am, I roused myself, went upstairs, and dosed out some Robitussin DM. She took it happily, but the coughing didn't stop. Around 1:00am I drug myself out of bed again and set up a nebulizer for her. Matt attended her with the nebulizer and I dropped back in bed. At 1:20am I heard the nebulizer stop and Matt tucked Naomi back in bed, propped up on some pillows. The coughing continued, but taperd off around 2:00am and we finally fell asleep. (She's fine today.)

At 4:40am I woke to hear someone standing beside the bed, breathing softly. I reached out into the dark and found a cold, naked Emma. "Emma, what are you doing?" I croaked, half asleep. "I weh pee in pah-ee. I nee el wih my gammie (I went pee in potty, I need help with my jammies)" she answered. I congratulated her, threaded her arms through the arm holes, zipped her up and sent her back to her bed. Ahhhhhh.

At 4:50am Emma began crying loudly. I jumped out of bed and rushed to hush her before she woke anyone else. "I nee my ah-er ah! (I need my other sock)" she whimpered. I couldn't find her other sock so I grabbed a new pair, threw one on the floor, stuck the other one on her bare foot, thumped her back down in her bed, and told her she needed go to sleep this time. Since I was up I traipsed upstairs again to use the bathroom.

At 6:30am Toby woke screaming again. I'm not really sure why, since 7:30am is his normal time to wake up. I jumped up quickly to hush him before he woke anyone else. His cup was empty again so I ran upstairs and refilled the cup with more soy milk, then rushed back down to hush him again. Miraculously, he settled down again and I was able to snag nearly another hour of rest before the whole crew was up.

So I slept from 10:30-11:40pm, 2:00-4:40am, 5:00-6:30am, and 6:45-7:30am. That's around six hours of sleep total--sort of, with five trips upstairs in the middle. Ah, the night life, I think I may prefer newborns' sleep hapbits to toddlers'.