Hard Day's Night

At 3am Nate woke up (for the second time) and he had just fallen asleep when Nick woke up, catapulted out of his bed, and danced in front of me waving arms crying "up! up!" He's begun waking up crying in the middle of the night. Twice I have taken him into bed with me so that we could all get sleep, and that's why this is my fault.

I rocked him. I rubbed his back. I covered his eyes with my hand so he would close them and counted to a thousand. But every time I got up to leave he would cry, stand up, and wail "room! room!" I thought about it, but decided it would be better to kick this habit as soon as we could.

It was 4:16am. Nick cried and cried and cried. He screamed and screamed and screamed. I took Nate out of the room. I told Nick I loved him. I gave him a billion stuffed animals, I gave him books to read, I gave him water. He screamed. I closed the door to his room. He banged on the door, or the wall. I had to check on him because it sounded like The Crazy Maniac was hacking him to tiny bits, and there I was, pillow over my head, just trying to sleep. What would the headlines be on THAT one? "Mother Thought Murder was Tantrum." He would stop for fifteen or twenty seconds, and then scream loudly and high enough to shatter glass. The cats reacted by running up and down the stairs very loudly and scratching the furniture in the dining room. The dog shuffled and scratched himself and whimpered. I threw some unidentified object at the dog so he would stop moving. At 5:30am Nick finally stopped crying.

Of course Nate was up just before 6am. And despite the fact that he was awake screaming, Nick woke up before 6:30. He was smiling, happy, and didn't look tired AT ALL.

This morning I was so out of it I made a huge, huge pot of coffee so that I could make it through the morning... and didn't realize I had made decaf until well into my second cup.