I always knew that being a parent meant getting woken up in the middle of the night.

However, I was completely unprepared for the variety of things that would cause my children to think “Hey look, it’s 3:55 AM, I better go tell mom all about this – right now!”

Last night Jane showed up at the side of our bed at, you guessed it, 3:55 AM.

She was very upset.

This is not unusual. Most children who arrive in the middle of the night in the pitch black are upset. What was unusual was that she was upset about her candy.

That’s right, Jane woke me up just before 4 AM to tell me that her candy was missing.

Apparently, her secret stash of candy (which never should have been in her room in the first place) was missing, it was probably Goose’s fault and what was I going to do about it.

My intelligent response to this was, “Urgh. Murble. Rummppfff.”

Jane was unimpressed so she repeated her tale louder and more insistently which woke me up enough that I replied with an ever more intelligent, “How about you come snuggle with me.”

Which she did as she continued to talk about her candy. Finally after listening to her candy dilemma for six hours, (or maybe six seconds, it’s hard to tell…I’m not at my best at 3:55 AM)  I harshly yelled at her to be quiet because it was the middle of the night and why was she even talking about candy?!?

Then she cried, fell asleep, hogged the bed, messed up the covers and was a giant pain right smack dab in the middle of John and I for the rest of the night.

This morning the first thing she did was run to inspect her candy stash. Admittedly I rolled my eyes when she started in talking about it again.  I thought that this had all been a bad dream, maybe her dream, maybe mine, maybe we both had a bad dream but I didn’t think it was real because…

Who would inspect their secret candy stash at 3:55 AM?!?

But it was true. Her secret candy stash was missing and all she could find was a chewed on sucker stick with the wrapper still clinging to it.  She was crushed.

I told her to hurry up and put her clothes on before she was late for school.

Moral of the Story: Mom’s have no sympathy when breaking the rules backfires on you.

Other Moral of the Story: Never underestimate the power of children to disrupt your sleep.