Tag Archives: sleep

Totally Hidden

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I was having a hard time getting Foodie to go to bed last night. She loves playing and snuggling with her brothers and had it in her mind that she HAD to sleep in their room. That would be fine and dandy, but she flails in her sleep and I could see that ending very badly. So, she had been reprimanded and returned to her room several times.

I stationed myself on the stairs after one of her many guided returns to her bed. Sure enough, I watched as her door silently crept open. She was going to make a break for it, but as I watched for her to emerge, I had to suppress the giggles.

My sneaky daughter had decided that she could sneak in to her brothers’ room unseen if she was hiding. Under a blanket.

I watched as she shuffled slowly towards the door with a tiny pink polka dotted blanket draped over her head.  It didn’t even cover her top half fully. But, she was convinced she was completely hidden from me.

The best part was how shocked she was when I came upstairs to herd her back in her room.

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Sibling Love

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I love that my kids are friendly with each other. They like to play together all the time. The boys even include their sister most of the time. I hear them guiding her to perform the same mischeveous tasks they do all the time.

Hearing them laugh and run through the house is a near-constant source of joy to me.

Near-constant.

When it is 10pm, it is time to go to bed. Stop galloping! No more playing! Quit being so…cute and caring toward each other!

It’s going to be a long day…

Sweet Dreams!

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I went a-sneaking last night to see how the kids were sleeping. Foodie’s door was ajar so, I peeked in on her first.

But, she wasn’t there. Suppressing the urge to panic, I looked in to the twins’ room and, sure enough, there was Foodie. She was snuggled up in bed with Rain Man. They were both sleeping like contented little angels.

I considered moving her back to her bed, but she looked so peaceful and Rainy was probably thrilled to have someone to cuddle all over in bed. (He’s a hugger, let me tell you…) So, I let them be.

I stood watching them for a while because it looked so precious. I had all those good, heart-warming thoughts that get barfed up in to Norman Rockwell prints about those adorable siblings. They could be a painting! Why hasn’t anyone ever painted these children? They are clearly the most beautiful and loving children on the planet!

Then, Foodie rolled over in her sleep and kicked Rain Man square in the jaw. He woke up shouting for me to remove her. That woke her up and she started bawling about interrupted sleep.

Ah. Yes. That’s why no one has painted them. I remember now.

 

Bedtime Blues

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Well, it’s official. My child is alive because of photosynthesis. She has to be. That’s the only explanation I have for Foodie’s sleep habits. I mentioned she gets up at the butt-crack of dawn? Well, she also doesn’t go to sleep at night until…about 5 minutes before she wants to get up for the day. (By my scientific estimations, that is…)

Sometimes she will psych us out by pretending she is going to go to bed like a normal human being at an acceptable hour. But, like Chuck Norris, she doesn’t sleep. She waits. Somewhere around 11pm, she’ll sneak out of her room. Sometimes she comes downstairs to beg for a glass of water, a hug, a blanket, a Swiss army knife, steak dinner… you know, the usual stuff. That I can handle. I can usually pacify her with a hug or some milk and then tuck her back in to bed with a good success rate.

But, Foodie doesn’t always want to be discovered and sent back to bed. That sneaky little ninja will creep in to the twins’ room and hop in to bed with one of the boys. (Usually Cereal Killer is her victim. Those two are two peas in a pod.) And if she would just go to sleep, I would even be willing to accept her nocturnal wanderings. But, of course, she doesn’t sleep. Or wait. She pokes. She picks at her brothers until they wake up so she has someone to play with.

But, my boys are mini-bears. They don’t want to get up in the middle of the night to build train tracks for their sister. So, they HOWL and I have to bolt upstairs to save them from the sleep-disturbing menace before they wake up enough to whack her in the head and push her off the edge of the bed.

Rinse and repeat.

Seriously, can we have some research and development team get on that coffee IV already?

Morning People

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My daughter is a morning person. I am….not so much a morning person.

Let’s put it this way: I sleep like a bear hibernates. I like long uninterrupted sessions of sleep and I have been known to eat tourists who get too close.

Foodie is getting dangerously close to becoming a tourist.

Here is how my morning goes:

Sometime after midnight but before 5:30AM, Foodie wakes up. She recently learned how to use door knobs so, she helpfully releases herself from her room and pads down to my room where I am still hoping for at least another 2 hours of hibernation.

Foodie bypasses Daddy completely (UNFAIR!) and wanders over to my side of the bed with whatever she’s dragged with her. Sometimes it’s a blanket. Sometimes it’s clothing, a Wii controller, or a diaper. Every once in a while it’s a brother. She then stands right next to my face breathing and waiting.

The “Oh Lord, someone is staring at me” feeling is usually enough to wake me up in a sudden panic with Foodie staring wide-eyed, inches from my face. If that doesn’t work, Foodie will start a time-honored toddler tradition.

“Mama. Mam. Mama. Wake-a up! MAMA! MAMMAAAA!”

Rinse and repeat until I groggily toss Foodie in to the bed and snuggle her between me and Daddy.

This will keep her happy for about 20 seconds. But, then she wants to start roaming around the bed and playing hide and seek in the covers. If all that commotion fails to produce an upright parent willing to make her some breakfast, she will go back upstairs and wake up her brothers using, what I can only assume, are the same methods she used on me. They work better on the twins.

Then there’s no way anyone’s sleeping anymore.

All this before 6:00AM. And people wonder why I dream of a coffee IV…