Sweet boy

Shortly before 5:00 this morning I awoke to hearing someone screaming, "Mommy!" so I stumbled out of bed to investigate and found Zoë sitting up in bed, screaming her head off. Alexander had also gotten up and was making his way up Zoë's (bunkbed) stairs to comfort her. He reached over her bedrail and patted her on her head. 

"I can't sleep because Zoë is crying," Alexander explained. 

"I can hear that," I agreed. "Let's see if we can't make her feel better."

She calmed down enough to stop screaming long enough to tell me that she'd had a terrible nightmare (and did not want to talk about it), but then she started into wailing again.

"Let's go to the bathroom," I suggested. "Everybody can go potty. We can get a little drink, snuggle back into our beds, turn on some lullabies..."

I helped Zoë and Alex climb down from the top bunk and led them to the bathroom. We left Zoë in the hall bathroom and I took Alex into my bathroom to go potty. When we came out, Zoë was waiting for us near the foot of my (our) bed. 

"Let's go back to bed," I said. 

Zoë shook her head. 

Clearly she had decided that the only thing that would make her feel better was finishing off the night in Mom and Dad's bed. 

"Alright, here's the deal," I said. "You can sleep in my bed but you have to lie still. And no talking. We need to go back to sleep!"

So those two cute little people raced to climb up into the bed and as they were settling down, Alexander magnanimously proclaimed, "BoBo, you can sleep next to Mommy," and nestled down beside Daddy.

That was a big thing for that little momma's boy to do!

And those two slept in for so long! They've been getting up rather early lately but today they both slept until past 9:00. I don't know if it was because of our middle-of-the-night party, the fresh, chilly air, or feeling so safe sandwiched into a big family bed, but they were both very well-rested when they got up this morning.

The windows are not open tonight! The remnants of Hurricane Sally are blowing over us right now and it's been raining, raining, raining, with more rain expected tomorrow. 

This morning the kids wanted to have some outside time before the storm came, so the older kids dressed themselves for the chilly weather (it's only 65°C/18°C) and headed outside. Alexander needed help getting ready to go outside and he brought me a sweater and asked me to put his "storm suit" on. I guess we have snowsuits and swimming suits, so why not "storm suits"?