Maybe it will end after all

To his credit, Benjamin stayed dry last night. He's been good about that for the entire month of May. I'm not saying that he's never wet the bed (because he certainly has); I'm just saying that he's been good about staying dry. In fact, we printed out a sticker chart with 25 spots for stickers and, although we started it on April 21 (and those days in April were a joke because he wet the bed every other day), it's now full of stickers. He had a couple of runs where he stayed dry for a full five days at a time.

So perhaps there is an end to things like potty-training Benjamin.

Zoë, on the other hand, is back to the torturous sleeping schedule she likes to pull every once in a while. She never sleeps well; she always stays up far later than every other baby on the block. That's just her style. But recently she's been trying to outdo herself. She stayed up until around 2:00 on Saturday night, so I had a little chat with her on Sunday about needing to go to bed before then. She laughed in my face and then stayed up until around 3:00 on Sunday night.

Last night she was acting tired on our way home from dinner, singing to herself, and slow-blinking, so I had half a hope she'd retire at a decent hour. But, no. We got her out of her carseat and she stayed awake until 3:30.

I know that eventually she'll max out her ability to stay awake and she'll fall asleep around 10:00 one night and then, for the most part, stay sleeping through the night. Waking up to nurse every two hours, of course, because that's still how we roll. On a good night.

On a bad night she stays asleep for half hour bursts. I suppose, to be honest, she did fall asleep at 9:00 last night. For forty minutes. And then she was like, "Party time!"

But it was so ridiculous because it was lonely, boring party time and she knew it. Every time anyone coughed or cleared their throat in their sleep she'd get all excited and call out, "Oh, hi!"

"It's the middle of the night," I'd remind that sleep-stealing monster Zoë. "No one is coming to play with you. Everyone is sleeping."

One day soon she'll start going to bed at a decent hour. Shoot, I'd take 11:00 or even midnight and call that a decent hour. I'm not sure how many more 3:00s I can take though.


Anyway, the good news is that I put Zoë down around 3:30 in her own bed and didn't hear a peep from her until around 9:00. Let's round up and say she got six hours of sleep! That's basically sleeping through the night! She hasn't slept for that many consecutive hours since that one time she did it when she was around a month old (I'm not even joking).

I woke up around 8:30 and dashed to her bedside to make sure she was still breathing, which is a little ridiculous because she's over a year old and she'd only been sleeping for five hours at that point. That's something everyone jokes with with new moms, right, "And then the first time they sleep through the night you'll wake up worried." And everyone laughs because everyone knows the feeling, except for me. I laugh because I know that they'll sleep through the night once and then will not do it again for months and months and months at a time.

Usually I feel defeated, exhausted, angry, unmotivated, forgetful, and slightly paranoid, like I'm both a zombie but am also being hunted by zombies (or maybe I'm being hunted by humans...very small humans...children). Not sleeping will do that to you.

Last night, however, I got five hours of uninterrupted sleep so I feel like I could take on the world (or at least another night or two of terrible bedtimes (and if an afternoon nap is in the cards I would definitely still say yes to that)).