The Night the Baby Slept

If you "like" my Facebook page, you may have seen me practically screaming from the rooftops about how excited I am that Claire slept nearly 12 hours last night.

That's right.  At 17 (and a half!) months old, my baby *just* slept through the night for the first time.  As in, didn't wake up screaming for me once.  And even better, didn't once wake me up with double-heel kicks to the face (oh yes, she has done that before).

Claire's preferred sleeping method.  ON MY PILLOW.  And no, I'm not asleep - I can't sleep like that!  I'm closing my eyes to block out the flash and secretly hoping it startles Claire into rolling over (it didn't - I had to move her).

Now, some of you just absolutely, positively cannot relate to this.  Your kids have been sleeping through the night since you were still counting their ages in weeks.  Maybe even in their own cribs, and maybe even in their own rooms.

For better or worse, that's not the case here.

When I woke up this morning at 6:40 AM, Claire's smiling face just inches from my own as she peered at me through her shaggy bangs, I was tired (it was 6:40 AM!).  But then, I realized...it was 6:40 AM!  Nearly 12 hours after I had laid Claire down in bed and tiptoed into the living room to watch Real Housewives.  And she hadn't woken me once all night long.

I know better than to expect a repeat performance.  I know so, so much better than that (my four-year-old doesn't consistently sleep through the night yet).  

But I'll take it for what it is.  A night of peace, for myself and for Claire.

And I will be very, very grateful for it.

I Am Grateful for SLEEP

Here is another one of those things I took for granted pre-kids.

SLEEP.

Seriously.

Recently, Charles and I were reminiscing about the "good old days" when we could stay up till 3 AM drinking wine and watching LOST or Beavis & Butthead and then sleep in until noon the next day.  We'd roll out of bed when we felt like it and go get some brunch somewhere. If we had to work, we'd just go to sleep earlier and then whine and moan about how hard it was to get out of bed and how *TIRED* we were the next day.

HA!

Hahahahahahahahahahahah!!!

Oh, how I wish pre-kids Me could see post-kids Me.

Times have changed.  There is no more late-night wine drinking.  Period.  And if there was, I would regret it the minute I got into bed because you know what happens the second I actually feel my eyes start to close and sleep start to overtake me?

The baby wakes up.  Like clockwork.  So, I don't drink wine late at night because I know I'm going to be up soon anyway, and why make it harder on myself than it needs to be.  Right?

There is no more sleeping in.  Well, there *kind of* is sleeping in...Charles will take the baby in the mornings (since I am up with her at night) and let me sleep until he has to work in the morning.  On weekends, he lets me sleep until she needs to eat.  So now, sleeping in equates to an extra thirty minutes to an hour and a half of sleep all by myself.  There are no words to explain how amazing that feels...all stretched out in bed in whatever position I so desire with a pillow over my head to drain out any unhappy kid noises coming from the living room...so I won't even try.  But there's no lounging in bed until noon anymore (there's no relaxing brunch anymore, either...it's WORK taking two kids out to eat).

These days, I am so grateful for sleep, it's ridiculous.  Not just my sleep.  I am grateful when Charles gets to sleep.  I am grateful when Jack sleeps.  I am grateful when Claire sleeps.  I am even grateful when the dog sleeps, because it means she's not running around making noise and waking the kids up.

I am grateful for sleep.

It's 4:45 AM, What Are YOU Doing??

It's 4:30 (AM).  I have been up since 2:00 (AM).  I am supposed to wake up at 6:30 (AM) for work.  Yaaaaaay.....

Jack woke up around 2:00 trying to get into bed with me and when I told him to get into his own bed (which is RIGHT. NEXT. TO. OUR. BED.)...well...it all went downhill from there.  "I neeeeeed Daddy!" he screamed (as in, actually screaming at the top of his lungs).  See, he knows better...sad to say it, but six-month-pregnant-mama isn't likely to get out of bed in the wee hours of the morning unless the house is on fire (or there's a scorpion in our bed) and Jack knows this.

So Daddy got up.  Carried him all around the room, rocked him, bounced him, tried telling him stories...for about an hour.  Then I tried, but my technique is lacking (Me: "I'll hold you Jack, but I'm not getting out of bed because my back hurts" Jack: "Nooooooooooo!"). 

Finally - after nearly two hours of screaming and crying, he starts telling us his tummy hurts.  At this point I am wide awake (and thinking really unpleasant thoughts about the work day ahead, which involves an extra long commute and lots of being nice as we are putting on our annual charity golf tournament today).  I figure if his tummy really does hurt this bad, maybe a hot bath would help.  So I offer a hot bath and within seconds Jack is chattering away about his "special night time bath".

So, the good news is, it worked.  He stopped crying and cheered up and even let loose a few pretty man-sized farts in the bath (so maybe it really was tummy trouble...??).

The bad news is...well, do I really even need to elaborate on that?  It's 4:45 AM!  I'm awake.  I'm watching Chuck's Big Air Dare.  I'm six and a half months pregnant.  I have to "wake up" in less than two hours so I can spend an hour and a half in the car driving to work.  I'm TIRED!!!! (I know, waaaaaaah waaaaaaah waaaaah...).

On the plus side, Charles is asleep (I sent him back to bed once I realized there was no chance of me going back to sleep) so I plan on taking a NAP when I get home.

The Scorpion Ranch

We used to joke that we could name this place (our house, that is) The Scorpion Ranch.  After all, we breed them, we raise them. We slaughter them.  Of course, we don't do any of this on PURPOSE (except the slaughtering part), but it seems that we thrive as scorpion breeders.

We see, on average, probably one socorpion every week.  Many of these encounters are of the (very) close kind.  I have been stung twice now (Scorpion Sting Number Two is what has prompted this post).  My husband has been stung once.  I have found scorpions in the shower - specifically, on my arm, my shoulder, and climbing up my leg.  That's right - IN THE SHOWER.  I have found scorpions in bed (hence Scorpion Sting One and Scorpion Two for me, and Scorpion Sting One for Charles - yeah, you read that right, we were stung in bed - three times in a six year period).  We find them crawling across the floor and up and down the walls.  They are in the bathtub, in my dirty clothes pile (think it took me long to shake out my dirty clothes before doing any laundry or God forbid, wearing something that was in the laundry pile?), hiding betwen the washing machine and the dryer.  They. Are. Everywhere.  EVERYWHERE, I tell you!! 

So that brings me to Scorpion Sting Number Two.  December 14th, 2010. The night got off to a rough start with Jack waking up, screaming, around midnight.  We finally figured it was his tummy and probably a result of his dinner (not one, but two quesadillas!).  It took a good thirty minutes to get him settled back down again, and I ended up laying down with him (which I often do).  He woke up again, fussing and crying, around 5:00 AM.  Around this time I got up to pee and crawled back into bed, completely unaware of the scorpion that was at this time somewhere very near me (and my sleeping toddler).  Well - it found me!

Around 5:30 I felt something crawling down my neck towards my shoulder.  I did what any reasonable Scorpion wrangler would do.  I FLIPPED THE EFF OUT.  The second I hit it, it went for the kill and pierced my neck.  Luckily, I must have brushed at it at the same time because the stinger brushed my neck/shoulder rather than leaving me with a scorpion puncture wound.  It still hurt though.

Anyway, I jumped (JUMPED) out of bed, yelling "Scorpion!  Scorpion! Scorpioooonnnnnn!!" and pulled my shirt off at the same time.  Charles jumped out of bed as well, and Jack woke up (crying, of course...and probably scared to pieces).  I found the little bugger crawling out of the arm of my shirt (which at this point was lying on the bed). 

Because this sting was not nearly as intense as the first time I was stung, I was able to think clearly and put this to work as a learning opportunity for Jack (who had cheered up considerably when he realized I was freaking out over a scorpion - the kid loves bugs). "Jack, what do you do when you see a scorpion?" I asked.

He replied with "No touch! Dada get it."  SO proud.

And Dada get it, he did. Much to Jack's delight, that scorpion went DOWWWWWN. 

I need to back up a second though and reiterate: THERE WAS A SCORPION IN BED WITH MY SLEEPING CHILD.  Aaaagggghhhhhh!!!!! 

It is not easy to manage scorpions.  The Orkin Man, who was out not long ago, gave us scorpion traps - yes, traps - to catch them. A Scorpion trap is a sticky little box that they crawl into and get stuck on.  Of course, you have to guess about where to put them and then hope a scorpion A) stumbles across it, and B) decides to walk into it...but should those things happen, you have one less scorpion.

We happen to be out of scorpion traps at the moment, but it's safe to say we will be stocking up.  Here's hoping they have scorpion traps at Walmart!