Real Quick

I had to get out of bed just to write a little bit about what the insanity of our nighttimes are like at the moment. Here goes...

We ate a late dinner of grilled steak and chicken (thanks, honey!) after 8:30pm and finally started moving towards bedtime around 9:00. Katie was very overtired after going with me to baseball practice and ballet. But we kept her up through dinner and then I went to nurse her to sleep. Steven took the boys to their room and the girls went to bed too.  But Mary Clare came in to say goodnight to Katie and me, and she subsequently woke up the baby. There was no getting her back to sleep, so I went into the living room with her to let her "play it out" for a bit. Some people let their kids cry-it-out, but my strategy is play-it-out. I watched my latest Netflix obsession, "Parenthood," while she crawled around and bugged the dog. Parenthood has helped me survive the past week of craziness, which started exactly one week ago tonight with Thomas' ear infection.

So anyway, she started getting fussy and I decided it was time to try to put her to sleep again. She was in that half-asleep stage when Thomas started wailing. I had to locate Steven (husband) who was asleep in Ellie's room. (It's often like "musical beds" around here!) I asked Steven to stay with Katie so she wouldn't crawl off the bed while I went to check on Thomas. Thomas obviously had some ear pain going on due to his ear drum rupture last week, and it was draining again on the pillow. I made him go to the bathroom (always my first line of attack for nighttime wakings), got him some water, and then tried to convince him to take an Advil chewable while I wiped out his ear a little. I wasn't successful at getting him to take the pain med, but he ended up in our room trying to fall asleep with his head on the dog on the floor! I got him set up with some pillows and blankets by our bed, and then went back to work on getting the baby to sleep.

Finally I succeeded in getting Katie to a deep sleep, and then Ellie came in crying. She sometimes has nightmare sleep-walking episodes. She had one a couple nights ago while Steven Joseph was also having crazy fever-induced hallucination-type things and the baby was hysterical (Steven said he felt like he was in an insane asylum!). Tonight I convinced her to go back to bed if I went with her.  After a few minutes she finally stopped crying and shaking and fell asleep watching Lennon and Maisy YouTube videos on my phone.

Cue Steven Joseph's coughing attack. He has been having coughing attacks the past few nights. Thankfully it isn't the croupy kind like last week, but he is still very uncomfortable and crying. I sent him to the bathroom and got him some water. I tried unsuccessfully to get him to agree to some cough medicine, and sat with him while he fell back asleep in his bed. (Don't worry, I'm sure he will be in our room at some point before daylight!)

Katie again! Baby started fussing for Mommy and I had to go nurse her back to sleep. It's at this point that I realized just how utterly crazy these nights can be and that I should write it down for posterity's sake. Most of our nights aren't this insane, but with a week filled with fevers, ear infection, teething, headaches, coughs, and nightmares...this past week has been quite a doozy! Now it's midnight and I'm hoping for some good sleep, and hoping that we don't have another night like this for a long while...