Tuesday, August 13, 2013

A Little Night Music

I went back to bootcamp yesterday. I'm pretty happy, after over a year of migraines and no working out through my not so pleasant pregnancy, to even be able to exercise, even though I am really, and I mean really, out of shape now. I never thought I'd be grateful to exercise, but perspective is an amazing thing. However, I am super sore after two days of workouts. Last night, I barked at Daniel because I went upstairs to find the baby's gripe water only to have him tell me it was downstairs. He "thought I knew." If I knew it was downstairs, why would I have hauled myself up the stairs when it's so painful for me and took me a pathetically long time to manage it? I may have asked that question less than politely. Sorry, honey. My thighs were about to give out on me.
But I went back, and overall (last night's episode aside), it seems to be improving my mood. Thanks, endorphins. 
The only downside apart from the aforementioned soreness is that it's early in the morning. Like unholy early, and I have to wake up before five to get there. I'm not the biggest fan of waking up before five. I'm so against it, I even try to avoid hanging out with people that do like it. Guilty by association with mornings.
So, after waking up at 4:45am yesterday, and putting in a full day (I tried this whole new thing--no naps for me I am supermom! I work out! Screw that. If the kids go down at the same time, I'm resting. Laundry can just chill a while), I was ready to crash by 9.  Baby felt differently, so at 9:30pm, she did go to sleep, and Daniel and I crashed hard. We slept like the dead.
For a couple hours.
First, the baby (who usually wakes up one time a night to eat and sleeps like a rock the rest of the time), woke up with a stuffy nose just before 1am. In a zombie-like state I just fed her and put her back down. Apparently, no one told zombie me about the change in schedule, and habits die hard. Since obviously food doesn't actually clear breathing passages, though being propped up helped for a while, baby was up again at 2. I fed her again and she fell back asleep. Thank heaven the house wasn't on fire, I'd probably just attempt to rock and nurse the flames and go back to sleep.
Sometime around three, we heard a new person crying. Our darling son was having some sort of night terror. That is daddy's to deal with. Its the only good trade off to me being the only one with "the equipment" to feed the baby in the middle of the night. Still, the monitor is right next to my face, so he was keeping me up. When he seemed to be calming down, the baby woke up again. This time I was awake enough to do the math (gracias, Peyton) and realized she had only slept an hour and didn't try to feed her again. I changed her diaper and sucked out her boogers. She hates having her boogers sucked, so there was a calm-down period. As the baby was falling back asleep in my arms, Peyton noticed his water cup was empty. Rather than cry or ask for more water through the door, he opted for a complete and total meltdown. Screaming, crying, throwing his cup at the door, throwing toys and shrieking "I neeeeed water!" between sobs. He was lucky he was still half asleep because at that exact moment, we weren't feeling a lot of mercy for an intentional tantrum. It took him a while to calm down too.
I finally laid back down to sleep at 4:10. My alarm went off at 4:45. I got my already sore butt royally kicked and dragged my already sore legs home just after six. Daniel, equally bleary-eyed but ready for work, informed me the baby had woken up at five and was still awake in her crib. As she thankfully dozed back off and I decided to shower and get ready before the school prep morning dash, Sam poked her head out the door and said "Phew! You're up! Can I come out? I've been awake forever waiting for someone else to get up!"
This might be the sleepiness talking, but I am 100% convinced that my kids have taught themselves to read and write--even the baby--and colluded to make a schedule and take actual shifts to keep me awake all night long while still each being well rested enough to keep me up all day as well. I just have to find where it's posted and destroy it to get back to my peaceful nights. There is simply no other explanation!

My conclusion might sound a little crazy, but all my fellow parents can probably relate. Who hasn't had a night like this with kids in the house?