Nighttime

The moment all the kids are in bed and I can sit with my knitting and reruns of Law and Order...some days, it's my favorite part of the day.  Tim and I used to marvel at how well our kids went to bed.  There were never any last minute drinks, or 'i can't sleep', or one more story, or anything.  We said prayers, turned the light out and that was it!  Somehow, somewhere our smooth routine has changed.

Now, Maria has to be gated in her room.  If we don't put the gate up, she wanders around upstairs keeping other kids awake.  She has slowly gotten used to this over the past two weeks and is finally going to sleep (although it's on the floor by the gate) without screaming.  I could care less where she sleeps in that room as long as she's quiet.

Ahren may, just may, be getting a little old for a 7pm bedtime.  *sigh* But most days he goes right to sleep.  However a few days this past week he's been staying up looking at baseball and football cards.  Whenever he finds one that he thinks Tim will like, he'll sneak downstairs to show him.  Very sweet, but could you please wait until morning??

Annie is a talker.  And even though sometimes she falls asleep at 6:30 on the couch, if Lydia engages her at all in their room, it's on.  When she 'can't sleep', I'll tell her to count as high as she can.  She can only really count to about 14 and she does so out loud over and over.  I need to think of a new trick for her.

Speaking of tricks, Lydia is the one who has to have a gimmick every night.  It started out great, when she was about 3 1/2.  Now that she's 5 1/2 it's getting a little old.  We have to tell her what to think about...as in, the silliest thing we can think of.

"Lydia, think of a pink elephant wearing purple high heels running a race with a yellow unicorn that has green polka dots."


"Lydia, tonight I want you to think about green monkeys hunting for bananas in the jungle to feed their 12 purple baby monkeys.  They have to find food for them before the tigers come to eat it."


"Tonight think about ducks swimming in a red pond.  They are chasing green fish and are very hungry.  How many fish do they catch?"


Usually this works.  I have no idea if she dreams about this crazy stuff or if it's just enough to keep her imagination busy until she drifts off to sleep.

Then there's the whole sleeping through the night thing.  The only one that never wakes up is Ahren.  Somehow he has always been a great sleeper and never wakes until the sun rises.  I love that boy!  Sometimes Lydia and Annie will wake up and not realize that the reason they're awake is they have to use the bathroom.  Thankfully they wake up (on most nights) before they go!  And sometimes Maria will wake up for no apparent reason to make sure we're all still where we're supposed to be.

Add any sickness or emotional variables and you end up with a morning like this morning:
*I awoke at 5:30 to Maria crying.  Tim went to get her and took her to Lydia's bed to sleep some more.
*Lydia was asleep on the love seat because she woke around 3am and couldn't sleep.  I told her to use the bathroom and sleep on the couch.  (We don't let them sleep in our bed, but the couch counts as 'closer to mom and dad' and the kids are fine with it.)
*Annie slept on the couch last night.  I have no idea why or what time she went there, but she's still sleeping.
*Maria came down to my bed about 6am.  I'm not sure if she snuck away from Tim or if Tim sent her to me.  At any rate we had about 30 minutes of snuggle/singing/'please-go-back-to-sleep' time before we got up to eat breakfast.
*Tim is still asleep in Lydia's bed.

So, happy Saturday!  Maybe we can all have a good nap today :)