Oh the things nobody tells you…

When you are pregnant or have an infant baby, unwanted advice is everywhere, and I’ve decided it wouldn’t be so completely obnoxious if it wasn’t so useless.

“Cherish every moment”  is a good idea, but perhaps it would be more practical to mention what could possibly happen to your body after two births.

“They are only little once” is very true, but it should come with the additional advice that even though they are only little once, there will still be times where flushing them down the toilet or selling them to the bum on the corner seems like a completely sane idea.

Currently I’m hating all those well-wishing-baby-questioners who wanted to know if my girls were “sleeping through the night yet?”

Sleeping through the night, HAH!

What people should really ask is: “Is your darling little baby sleeping through the night yet? Because soon she’ll turn into a toddler that you are convinced may be possessed by evil otherworldly spirits and will never again sleep though the night. Ever.”

Many, many, months ago I’m sure I must have reported to someone that yes, little Clara was sleeping through the night.

I take it back.

Here is how our nights go:

The girls go to sleep.

John goes to sleep.

I stay up too late (I can’t help, it it’s a life long problem I have) and finally hours after everyone else, I turn off the light and start to fall asleep.

It is an uncanny coincidence that every night within 15 minutes of me turning my bedside light out, I hear Clara. Let me rephrase that I don’t just hear Clara. I lie there 3/4 asleep when a glowing ball of blue energy flies through the air and smacks me between the shoulder blades jolting me awake with the realization that my youngest daughter is no longer sleeping. And neither am I. Except the problem is sometimes she is sleeping.

Clara cries in her sleep.

She screams in her sleep.

She talks in her sleep.

And sometimes she is genuinely awake and only Mom will be able to calm her down again. So I listen to determine if this is a sleeping noise or an awake noise. If I’m lucky I fall back asleep with the knowledge that she’s just sleeping, and only I got to wake up for that one. If I’m unlucky I get up and check on her, pat her back, rock her, sing a song, do a dance, stand on my head, anything, anything to get me back to my bed. If I’m extra grumpy I make John go take care of her. This usually results in me lying awake listening to Clara scream for me. Unfortunately, since it’s me she’s screaming for and John can fall asleep rocking her while the screaming is taking place, I can end up lying there awake listening for an awfully long time.

Finally I truly fall asleep.

Then the whole scene plays out three or four more times through the night, if I’m lucky.

Between these times isn’t all deep sleeping bliss either. There are times where I will be soundly sleeping and then start waking up because I’m feeling hot, and claustrophobic, and where did my pillow go (?) only to discover that Ivy has joined us in bed, stolen my pillow and sandwiched me between her and John. This is easy to remedy, all I have to do is pick her up and put her back in bed, or I can whisper the magic words, “Ivy, go over to Dad’s side.” And off I go back to sleep, Until…

That nasty ball of screaming energy smacks me between the shoulders again.

Eventually something wakes me up and I’m not sure why at first but I feel sort of like I’m being watched. Because I am. Piper is staring at me from the foot of the bed. Not whining, not moving, just staring. Staring, because for whatever reason she has gotten off her twin sized mattress on the floor next to our bed and would really like to go back to sleep but could I please hold her blanket up so she could crawl back underneath?

During one of these non-sleeping episodes it occurs to me I have to pee. I can’t fall back asleep having to pee. So I get up and head down stairs. As I stumble down our stairs I curse my pre-child self who thought having one bathroom on the ground floor was fine. It’s not fine, I hate it.

Cue Clara.

Finally as morning approaches, John’s alarm goes off (hours before the rest of us get up) and if it happens to wake up a girl, or a dog, or a wife, I hear it. Then I hear him snooze it, and I lie there waiting for it to go off again. He snoozes it. I wait. He snoozes it. I wait. – Alarm clock snoozing habits should really appear more in premarital counseling sessions than they do.

In the final hours before the girls and I get up two things happen.

1) Clara screams one more time. Always.

2) Ivy wakes up way too early and I spend my last hour of sleep half awake trying to keep her quiet so that Clara and I can continue to sleep.

Then morning arrives and I drag myself out of bed after a very restful 7 or 8 hours.

Yes my baby did sleep through the night.  Who wants to know!