Nightmare nights

I've decided that one thing that is slowing me down on this whole unpacking and getting settled business is...Alexander. When he's awake he's getting into things or demanding to nurse. When he's asleep he's only ever asleep for maybe two hours at the most.

Yesterday he woke up at 7:30 in the morning (and I made Andrew get up with him because it had been a long night (if only I knew how long the night might have been)). He took a two-minute car nap on the way home from grocery shopping and then maybe a fifteen minute nap in the afternoon. And then he did not fall asleep in the evening until 11:20! 

Phew! I thought. At least he's down for a while.

Oh, no. He was up again at midnight. 

And then he was knocking on my bedroom door around 1:00 in the morning. 

And he did not fall back asleep until after 5:00 in the morning (after I let him scream in his room all alone for several minutes and then opened his door and told him that he was welcome to sleep in my bed if he was quiet and still—otherwise he was going to be stuck in his own bed by himself because Momma was tired (he had been in our bed jumping around and smacking us for the past few hours and I was so done with that)). 

We had to get up for church at 7:30 this morning. I had roughly declared (at 5:30 in the morning when we were finally settling down for the night) that Alexander and I would not be making it to church, so Andrew rolled out of bed at 7:30 to wake the other kids. Alexander woke up at 8:00, anyway, so we rushed to get ready for church—because if he was going to be awake we may as well be at church, right?

He made it through sacrament meeting until Zoë needed to run to the potty, and when I took her out he completely lost his head. He was screaming and crying and Andrew quickly rushed him into the hallway where they spent the remainder of the meeting. And then Andrew drove Alexander and me home so we could take a nap. 

Alexander quickly settled down for a nap of his usual length: 1 hour. 

I had been hoping for more, but that's all we got. So it's a good thing we went home to nap!

Quite frankly, I don't know Alexander is functioning because I am hardly able to function myself. Andrew, of course, is also tired, but he's also not nursing the baby all night so...he's perhaps a little less tired. If Alexander doesn't watch it he's going to find himself weaned soon (which, let's be honest, he probably will find himself weaned soon anyway). 

But, yes, I think that's contributing to how long it's taking us to get things organized...