the flip-side

So this is why having three kids isn't always magical.

Last night we go to bed around midnight, as per usual. Finally stop talking and Lou goes to sleep around 12:45. (He's one of those irritating people who can fall asleep in mere seconds, while I lie awake and have to invent mind tricks for myself to stop thinking and go to sleep. But that's another post.) He hasn't been asleep for five minutes when I start hearing strange noises. It sounds like a person moving around. I try to convince myself it's the dog, but eventually decide it can't possibly be. So I get up and go out to the hallway, where I find Greyson in the bathroom hovering over the toilet. (We've had some mucus-induced midnight vomiting this past week—apparently we've actually trained him to get up and go to the bathroom instead of vomiting in his bed! Yay for Greyson!) He's nauseous, but doesn't throw up. So I put him back to bed, change his leaky diaper, and head back to bed myself.

I get in bed, and Miss Veronica wakes up. I spend about 20 minutes listening to her—full cry, decelerate, decelerate, quiet, back to sleep?, no, full cry again! I decide that after a week's worth of bad nights, my sleep is more important than her learning to self-soothe. I get up and go get her. On my way from her room to ours, she starts shrieking full-force, and I just know she's going to wake someone up. Get her in her car seat next to the bed, give her her bottle. Get in bed to go back to sleep.

Then I hear voices talking. I get up to go see which child is awake and how bad the situation is. It's Charles, and he's whining. Now, Charles doesn't usually respond well to us going in in the middle of the night. It's often better just to let him put himself back to sleep. But I think that since Greyson's already been up, I don't want Charles waking him again, so I go in. I still have no clue what he wanted. I get him somewhat pacified, go back to bed. Veronica wakes up again, and this time doesn't really want her bottle. Just wants to "complain". While I'm trying to get her settled back, I hear the whining again from the boys' room. Charles is up again.

It's about this point—2 am, and I have yet to get a single moment's sleep—that I call for reinforcements and send Lou in to deal with Charles. Finally get Veronica back to sleep, and manage to eventually get to sleep myself.

(And the coda? Veronica was back up, gassy and complaining, at 5. Then she woke up at 8, and Lou got up with her. Greyson and I both woke up at 9, and Charles didn't make it downstairs until 10! Personally, I would actually have preferred it if they'd just all slept last night!)