Sleep, sweet sleep

Truong was on a business trip last night and while it sucks, it's also OK since I've got the timing of putting the kids down to a well orchestrated science. By 11:30pm, I got myself to bed. I always have a hard time settling down when Truong's gone but I was feeling pretty sleepy by then.

12:01am - Malia starts crying. She always cry around this time. I don't know why. Half the time her eyes are closed but she continues to cry and cry. Sometimes she can settle herself but not tonight. I barely got any sleep so I feel very sluggish as I drag myself out of bed to get her. Plus usually Truong gets her for me. I bring her into bed with me to nurse and she falls asleep. Now I can't sleep because I'm pretty tired and I'm scared that I'll sleep too hard to realize when/if she walks off the bed.

12:20am - I can't take the worrying anymore and I bring her back to her crib. She's in a dead sleep so I hope she stays asleep in the transfer. This of course doesn't happen and she wakes up screaming bloody murder as I close the door to her room. Luckily she settles down after a minute or so and falls asleep. Ahh - finally, sleep sweet sleep.

2:00am - "MOM! PEE!!" This I hear from the monitor in Kael's room. Ugh - while I'm thinking evil thoughts for yet again being woken up, I'm happy that he's at least telling me that he has to go rather than going in his pull-up. He tends to lay in bed and waits for me to get him so if I don't get him in time when he wakes up, I miss the opportunity to have him use the potty and wake up dry. So this is good. It would have been better if it wasn't at 2:00am but I can't complain. I run to his room and hustle him out of bed to the bathroom. We go back to bed and I tuck him in. I made the mistake of putting Mikah next to him when it should have been Baby Jaguar. He tells me the proper order of animals that should be in bed next to him and I realize that he's pretty lucid for 2:00am in the morning. I quickly tuck him in, kiss him g'night and run out of his room in fear that he's waking up. As I'm doing all this, I'm telling him "Please go back to sleep. Please go back to sleep." However, I can't tell if I'm telling him "PLEASE, go back to sleep" or if I'm praying "pleasegobacktosleep, pleasegobacktosleep." Doesn't matter. It's 2-friggin-o'clock in the morning. Back to bed - ahh, sleep sweet sleep.

6:00am - I hear voices. Strange voices telling me about traffic. It's Truong's damn alarm clock. I can't believe he left it on! ARGH!! I don't know how to turn it off so I push all the stupid buttons. I manage to dim the numbers and turn on the CD before the radio gets turned off. I settle myself back down. Then I think "what if I just pushed the snooze button and it'll turn back on in 10 minutes?" So I get up again and actually read the buttons this time to properly turn off the alarm. Back to bed - ahh, sleep sweet sleep.

6:07am - I hear noises from Malia's room. DAMMIT DOESN'T ANYONE SLEEP AROUND HERE ANY MORE?? I angrily slap on the video monitor and there she is: awake, walking around her crib and playing. I'm too tired to care. I turn off the monitor and try to go back to sleep. In the meantime, I can hear Malia chatting to herself, playing with the music toys and opening/closing her shutters.

6:20am - She's getting louder, calling me. She actually doesn't say "MAMA," she says something else that I can't quite pronounce but I understand her tone to mean "mama." She's not mad or crying, just yelling it, knowing that I'm next door. So I get up and bring her into bed with me to nurse in the hopes that she'll fall asleep.

6:40am - Not dice. She's totally awake despite nursing on both sides. She's mobile, crawling all over me. I try to doze with one hand clutched to her onesie to prevent her from falling over the edge. She starts to play the nose game with me (points to her nose, says "nose!" then points to my nose and says "nose!"). I'm not as animated as I usually am so she starts playing harder, jabbing her finger UP my nose rather than AT my nose. I quickly stop the game before I end up with a bloody nose. Then she scoots onto my belly and does the horsey-ride bounce. Cool - this I can do with my eyes closed so I start bouncing. Until she launches herself off sideways and comes within inches of the floor. It's this moment that I decide having a mattress on the floor would be a good idea. She can crawl where she wants at will, I won't have to worry about a broken neck, and I'll be able to catch more sleep. I'll have to discuss this further with Truong when he returns.

6:55am - I put her on the ground to wander around, after closing my bedroom door to keep her in the room with me. My eyes are closed, but my head is hanging over the edge of the bed - this is my way of sort of keeping an eye on her. I forgot to close the bathroom door and she walks out clutching toilet paper, making a banner from the bathroom all the way to my bed. I'm past the point of caring. Then she wanders to the bathtub and turns on the water. The granola guilt in me propels me out of bed to turn off the water and I figure, what the hell I might as well get up.

So that was my morning. Malia went down for her nap at 8:25am and Kael finally woke up at 8:30am. I'm staring at my pot of coffee, willing it to boil faster, working on the laptop as Kael's eating his oatmeal. I'd have gladly paid someone $20 to run to Starbuck's to get me a cup of java but alas, it's just me.