Once upon a bedtime…
… there were two children who didn’t want to sleep through the night.
The first child was the Munchkin, who thought that a parent should be sleeping with her – or at least rubbing her back until she fell asleep. Her mother started her Veggie Tales CD again, and rubbed her back for a little while, but then went to go get ready for bed herself. The Munchkin, however, couldn’t get back to sleep, and went to go find her mommy. Mommy was shocked to see her out of bed at 1:30 in the morning. The Munchkin went immediately back to bed, got her music started again, and was told not to get out of bed until the morning. She eventually fell asleep.
The second child was Baby Boy. Now, he had wanted to stay up late and play after his sister had gone to bed, but he had eventually crawled over to his daddy and fallen asleep on his shoulder. Then his mommy took him and put him in his crib. All seemed well until 4:30 this morning. Baby Boy woke up crying. Daddy went to get him and tried to console him. Baby Boy wanted to eat, so he wanted Mommy.
Mommy, however, was not going to nurse Baby Boy before 6 am. So, while he struggled to rip off her shirt, she swaddled him up in a blanket and rocked him for about 15 minutes. He did fall back asleep, but woke up as soon as Mommy laid him down. And then he cried and cried and cried and cried, because Mommy decided that she was too tired to keep rocking him, so she left him in his crib to cry and she went back to bed.
A half hour later, when Mommy realized that the crying had stopped, she sent Daddy into the nursery to check on Baby Boy and make sure that he wasn’t sleeping in a pile of blankets or anything. Daddy made sure he was okay and tucked him in.
At 7 am, Baby Boy awoke and got what he wanted – his morning snack with Mommy. He then fell back asleep for an hour, but then woke up and literally crawled over his semi-conscious mommy to get to his daddy. He curled up on Daddy’s chest and fell back asleep. After an hour and a half, Daddy gave Baby Boy to Mommy, so he could get up and go to work. Mommy and Baby Boy continued sleeping until the Munchkin woke up and came to ask for breakfast.
It was 10:15 am.
Both kids ate a full breakfast. Baby Boy ate a bowl of rice cereal and bananas, and the Munchkin ate 2 and a half pancakes. Then Mommy got them dressed and let them watch a pre-recorded Sesame Street. The late morning doesn’t bother Mommy too much, since they will end up with late naps today – they always do on Thursday because it is Lunch-at-Obachan’s-House day. In the meantime, the kids are happy, but their Mommy and Daddy want more sleep.
There is no moral to this story. The author has no rational explanation of why two children, who are used to sleeping through the night, decided to both awaken at different points during the night. The author only knows that if the kids try this again, drugs may be used. By the author.
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