The worst game of tag … ever
Almost two (two!) years ago, I posted about how much it sucks when your kids “tag-team” you at night.
You know, older kid wakes up screaming/crying, you drag yourself out of bed and deal with them, and then just as you’re falling asleep again, younger kid chimes in with their own separate complaints/issues.
Well, here’s an update for you: it still happens when your kids are three and almost-two!
Last night, Darling Husband was working an overnight shift — isn’t that always the way? Holla at me, shift-work spouses! — and the kids were doing everything in their power to overwhelm and exhaust me …
- I come up to bed and start reading
- D is now whining because his throat hurts
- Tell D that he needs medicine to make it feel better, he refuses
- C is cheerfully calling “Hi, Mummy!” from under her bedroom door
- Tell C to please get some sleep and she happily responds “Oh-tay!” (“Okay!”)
- D starts crying because of his throat, and I also suspect he has to pee
- Carry D to the bathroom, make him pee (I was right)
- Carry him downstairs to the locked medicine cupboard, show him his medicine choices (orange chewies, grape chewies, or grape liquid), he declines them all
- Tuck D back into bed
- Huge crash from C’s room
- I run into her room — dropping my iPhone on the floor in the process, so y’all know I was concerned! — and she is hysterical. A framed photo fell from her gallery wall (my bad!) but luckily nothing broke, and she wasn’t anywhere near it.
- C won’t calm down, and I feel really guilty about my crap photo-hanging abilities, so I bring her in bed with me (something I never do, but I figure it can’t hurt just this once)
- Tuck C in next to me, close my eyes, tell her it’s time to sleep
- C lies next to me, breathing softly
- *poke* *poke* “Ah-bows!” (She is poking my eyebrows)
- “Go to sleep, baby!”
- C lies next to me, breathing softly
- *poke* *poke* “Ah-washes!” (She is touching my eyelashes)
- “Yes, C! Go to sleep, please!”
- C lies next to me, breathing softly
- “Daddy blah blah blah DADDY blah blah blah BLAH?”
- “Shhhh, C. Daddy’s at work. Go to sleep.”
- C wraps her arms around my neck and says “Mamaaaaaaa!”
- I hug her back, and start realizing I am never going to sleep with her in the bed
- Fifteen minutes later, I ask if she wants to go back to her room, and she says yes
- Carry C back to her room, tuck her into her “floor bed”
- Console D, who woke up cranky again because of C
- Collapse into bed, and sleep straight through until, well, the crack of dawn when I hear D puttering around his room.
It’s definitely been worse, though. At least I wasn’t contemplating sleeping in the minivan this time.
xoxo
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