Sleeping (and not)

I don't know why I'm having so much trouble keeping up with my writing lately, though I imagine it has to do with (a) studying for the GRE, (b) writing for my class, which will be over in a few weeks, and (c) my children who are really keeping me hopping these days. Seriously. Alexander either wants me to hold him or he is getting into something he shouldn't. Zoë is constantly tackling that poor boy. Benjamin is, you know, Benjamin. And then the older girls are so busy with extracurricular events that it's hard to keep up.

I mean, I don't know I've ever been happier to miss the soccer registration deadline than I was this year.

Rachel asked me about it so I looked up the deadline and it was so far over it wasn't even funny and I was so relieved that I had a difficult time hiding my true feelings when I told Rachel the news. I was trying to sound devastated but I couldn't quite mask my glee: "Oh...no...we...missed...it."

Somehow she has friends doing both soccer and basketball this season (and they all come from families with, like, 5 and 6 kids so I don't know what my problem is...because I'm exhausted).

It could also have something to do with house hunting. And the fact that I'm still waking up in the middle of the night to nurse babies (and am maybe getting too old for that sort of thing).

Anyway, I have many stories going untold, which is kind of a shame because my family is awfully entertaining. Hopefully things will settle down in the next few weeks. Hopefully.

Meh. Probably not.

Alexander actually slept spectacularly well this weekend.

Andrew was in Toronto at a conference and Reid took the three older kids to Idaho on Friday, so it was just me, Zoë, and Alexander at home on Friday and Saturday.

He and I went down for a nap on Friday afternoon and I didn't set my alarm because I figured he would just wake me up (and because I didn't need to get up to meet the kids after school or anything), so I settled Zoë on the couch with a show and went to bed and woke up to Alexander fussing in his crib three hours later.


Zoë had fallen asleep on the couch and I honestly don't know how he slept that long because he never naps longer than an hour (take this afternoon, for example, when he slept for a meager 20 minutes). It was glorious, though I was a little worried about how they'd sleep that night.

But—miracle of miracles—they both slept great (which means I slept great, too)!

Alexander slept from about 9:30 PM to 7:30 in the morning (perhaps his longest stretch of sleep ever) and then he nursed and fell back to sleep until 9:30 or so when Zoë wandered in to find us because she'd just woken up.

It was miraculous.

I don't expect it to happen again for a long time, but it felt so nice to have such a good night's sleep.

Ordinarily our nights are a lot more...social.

A few weeks ago I had been up with Alexander a couple of times before I decided to just bring him into bed with me. I had just gotten him to sleep when our bedroom door flew open and in stumbled Zoë.

"Go to Dad's side," I whispered urgently.

She stumbled over to his side of the bed and I poked him and said, "Will you convince Zoë to go back to bed?"

"Huh? Yeah," he said.

But instead of helping her go back to bed he pulled her into our bed.

"No! Honey, no!" I whispered, poking him again. "Take her back to her bed."

"Mmmmm...yeah," he said.

"Fine," I grumbled. "I'll take the baby back to his bed. But if he wakes up...honestly..."

I don't know why I was wasting my breath. Andrew is very unresponsive in the middle of the night. The only times I've gotten him to be somewhat alert (and by "alert" I mean "vertical") have been when I've screamed something terrible in the middle of the night (like, "ANDREW! I'M BLEEDING! HELP ME! WE HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL RIGHT NOW!") or when all the kids are vomiting at the same time and I turn on all the lights and force him awake so he'll help me deal with the mass carnage (which, to his credit, he's a very willing helper once he's awake (it's just getting him awake that's the hard part))). But he could really sleep through pretty much everything.

When I came back from putting Alexander in his bed, Zoë was still in our bed and Andrew was half on top of her and she was squirming around, which is 100% why Alexander had to go back to his bed. There simply is not room for four people in our bed and with Andrew being such a heavy sleeper (and with Alexander still being swaddled), it makes me nervous to co-sleep.

"Hey," I said, prodding him some more. "You're squishing Zoë."

"Oh, Zoë," he said and then he started shushing her and patting her face/head. "Shhhhhh...shhh...shhh...shhh...shhh! Shhhhhh...shhh...shhh...shhh...shhh."

"I'm...not...even...crying!" she said, squirming away and batting at his hand.

"Seriously, honey! Just move over!" I said, giving him a less-than-gentle shove.

He rolled over and was immediately asleep again (probably on account of he'd never woken up in the first place) and I got Zoë settled down next to me. She'd had a nightmare and didn't want to sleep alone (I'm rather sympathetic when it comes to nightmares).

Andrew had no recollection of any of this in the morning and was actually somewhat surprised to find Zoë in our bed at all.

He really, honestly, never gets up with the kids, but this non-getting up time was so bad it rivals the time he was waving a kleenex over baby Miriam. I honestly didn't think he would ever top that one!