Oooh that little....#2

Oh them crazy kids. You go through all the trouble of training them at night by not responding to every cry and they start sleeping through the night (say at 6 months of age?) only to find that 6 months later you're right back where you started. Somehow, unbeknownst to you, child A has started a pattern of waking every night at 4 am, sounding like she's had a nightmare. So you rush in, night after night and stupidly wonder, why the increase in nightmares? Maybe she's going through a developmental change? Maybe she's getting sick?

No. She's just training your stupid butt to get up every night at 4 am and pat her. Sure the first time was innocent, she probably did have a nightmare. But nights 22 and 23? Probably not so much. So it takes an aside question, asked while at the doctor's office for freaking hand, foot and mouth disease, about supposed increases in nightmares around this age to be set straight. Because the kind doctor in all his wisdom basically tells you that you're being taken for a ride.

How did I not recognize this for the 89th time? I mean how many times does one of my children have to take advantage of my kindly sleepy stupid self before I realize it on night 2 instead of night 22? Or rather, before someone else calls it to my attention? I mean duh? Every night at 4 am she has a nightmare? Really? Is sleep that predictable?

And another question I'd like answered. How is it MORE disruptive to B's sleep when I go in and shut that girl up within moments (tiptoeing silently as humanly possible) than leaving her caterwauling for 20 minutes? But oh it is! The minute I turn that doorknob, silently mind you, because I have developed the instincts of a ninja when it comes to making no noise, that boy is up and looking for attention. And god forbid I give attention to the screaming child first, he then screams himself. Or heck, even if I give the screaming child second shrift? He still screams when I give someone else attention.

So, my nights are about to get easier. I have, for the past 2 nights, lain in bed listening to the varying cries of my daughter, and she is inventive I must add. I have struggled, felt guilty, analyzed every nuance of those cries, because she changes them up just to throw me off. And yet, she is alive in the morning. Smiling, happy. And we are both more rested. What a freaking paradox children are. Now the trick is to find all the other ways they are fooling me. Think I stand a chance?